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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28538217">there ain’t nothin’ common ‘bout us</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelica_barnes/pseuds/angelica_barnes'>angelica_barnes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>there ain’t nothin’ common ‘bout us [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>One Direction (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>ATTENTION EVERYBODY:, Abuse, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst with a (Realistic) Happy Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anorexia, Anxiety, BE SAFE AND HEALTHY KIDS, Bittersweet Ending, Bulimia, But they get better, Complicated Relationships, DESPITE WHAT BAD Y/A FILMS WANT YOU TO THINK LOVE DOES NOT CURE ALL, Depression, Domestic, Drug Addiction, Drug Withdrawal, Eating Disorders, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Fame, Families of Choice, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Getting Back Together, Guilt, I DO NOT CONDONE THIS IDIOTIC BEHAVIOR BY THE WAY, I am so sorry, I know, IF YOU HAVE A MENTAL OR PHYSICAL DISORDER SEEK HELP FROM MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS, Implied/Referenced Acephobia, Insecurity, Internalized Acephobia, Introspection, It is not, I’m sorry, Louis eats messily because I said so, Love Confessions, Magic, Magical Realism, Multi, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Overdosing, Panic Attacks, Pining, Post-Zayn One Direction, References to Hanahaki, Reflection, Regret, SO, Sad with a Happy Ending, Schizophrenia, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicide, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, Unconventional Families, Unconventional Relationship, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, WARNING: i have no idea how record players work so just work with me here okay, Zayn Malik Leaves One Direction, a fuckton of introspection that i should probably apologize for, also "Canada" by Lauv &amp; Alessia Cara and "Common" by ZAYN can be blamed for this, also because it fit the narrative but that's not important, also my bad if i gave any of you existential crises, also there's a lot of soulmates and ghosts, alternatively titled: i relapsed hard into my one direction obsession, and instead it turned into this, and it's about one fucking direction, and now i’m sixteen and i have this shit on my hands, and then some more crying, and watch 1D crack videos all in one day, apologies in advance, because communication is important and actually happens, because i started writing these when i was twelve and they were 5k max, because this is the first book i've ever written, but am really not all that sorry about, but whatever ya know love is love, crying crying crying, except i have since evolved as a writer, forgive me for stealing your livelihood, fuck this has so many tags, he stuffs his pancakes in his mouth until he’s got chipmunk cheeks, i am going to put you through hell with this story, i apologize for all of this, i didn’t mean to destroy you, i don’t know what happened, i edit my own shit and die like a genderfluid legend, i just wanted an excuse to write the boys wearing soft grey sweaters that are too big for them, i mean i'm a little ashamed, i poured my entire life into this story for six months and if nobody reads it i WILL cry, i promise there's actually fluff in here, i read Pride &amp; Prejudice, i swear to you this was supposed to be a funny story, if you’re ever sad, it was mostly an accident, it's just 2020, it's just always just a little bit sad, just imagine Louis singing "The Principal" by Melanie Martinez to Simon Cowell onstage, listen to Taylor Swift’s “folklore”, my bad - Freeform, no you don’t understand, now I'm really done, oh my lin there’s so much crying, okay i'll stop now i'm sorry bye, okay i'm really done now promise, or Zayn singing "I Don't Need Your Love" from SIX to the boys and Simon Cowell, or at least parts of it, please please please somebody enjoy this, see this is what happens when, some of the relationships in this are pretty unhealthy for awhile, somebody please read this, take care of yourselves, that, their sanity is questionable in this, there's a lot of fluff in here, there’s a strong possibility i may’ve accidentally made Louis schizophrenic, they're all asexual (sex-neutral/positive), think the house from "Knives Out" but taller and more chaotic, this is apparently the kind of fucking shit i write now, this is gay, this was supposed to be a 20k quick write, this was supposed to be funny, to get out all my feelings during my one direction relapse, watch as i overload you with symbolism and details (PAY ATTENTION), what a shock, why because i'm ace and starved for representation that's why, why do all of my characters always end up being certifiably insane, ya know, yeah i really just came for everyone’s souls here, you have no fucking idea how proud of this i am</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:28:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>87,532</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28538217</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelica_barnes/pseuds/angelica_barnes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end, their love story is the simplest one there is. Despite how messy and complicated the plot may be, drama and heartbreak hidden around every corner, their story is simple. It was when it began, and it remains so.</p>
<p>Their story, quite simply, goes like this: five boys meet.</p>
<p>They fall in love.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>or,</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The world ends, and suddenly Harry, Niall, Zayn, Liam, and Louis are alone in a haunted house in the middle of nowhere.</p>
<p>(A.K.A., I do my best to work through ten plus years of emotional baggage.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ed Sheeran &amp; Harry Styles, Ed Sheeran/Taylor Swift, Eleanor Calder &amp; Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles &amp; Taylor Swift, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson (past), Liam Payne &amp; Danielle Peazer &amp; Sophia Smith, Liam Payne/Harry Styles, Liam Payne/Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan &amp; Ed Sheeran, Niall Horan/Harry Styles, Niall Horan/Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson (brief), Niall Horan/Liam Payne, Niall Horan/Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan/Zayn Malik, Niall Horan/Zayn Malik/Liam Payne/Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, One Direction (Ensemble) &amp; Taylor Swift, Perrie Edwards &amp; Gigi Hadid &amp; Zayn Malik, Taylor Swift &amp; Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik &amp; Taylor Swift, Zayn Malik/Harry Styles, Zayn Malik/Liam Payne (past), Zayn Malik/Louis Tomlinson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>there ain’t nothin’ common ‘bout us [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090655</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Harry</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>title is taken from "Common" by ZAYN</p>
<p>DISCLAIMER: NONE OF THIS IS FACTUALLY ACCURATE. I DID MY BEST TO REMAIN TRUE TO THE RESEARCH I DID AND PRIOR KNOWLEDGE, BUT DO NOT TAKE MEDICAL ADVICE FROM THIS. GO TO A DOCTOR. ALSO, I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THE BOYS OR THEIR LIVES. THIS IS NOT EVEN SPECULATION. THIS IS JUST A FICTIONAL THEORETICAL UNIVERSE THAT USES CERTAIN REALISTIC ELEMENTS.</p>
<p>i'm gonna make a whole other post for the playlists of this, they're on Spotify under the same format<br/>like, there's a general one named after the fic and also one for each part</p>
<p>i tried to write One Direction in quarantine but it just turned into this whole other thing and i don’t know how but i apologize</p>
<p> </p>
<p>PLEASE NOTE:<br/>I myself believe in the current, or at least former, existence of Larry and Ziam. I’ve watched as many proof videos as you all and do truly believe those relationships are or were at some point real. However, the theories presented in this story about the inner workings of the relationships’ secrecy and their girlfriends/beards remains my own. Whether, as Larry/Ziam shippers, we are right or wrong gives us no right to be disrespectful or (god forbid) cruel to their girlfriends (or beards), nor their children, nor shippers who have different opinions. Everybody deserves to be open about who they love, but it is their choice when and where to be open about it, and it is, truthfully, none of our business who they’re actually with. If Louis and Harry or Zayn and Liam or any of the boys are together in real life, I wish them all the happiness in the world. And if they’re all straight (or like girls in some capacity) and are with their publicly known girlfriends, then I wish them the same. Please, let’s follow the influence of these wonderfully stupid idiots rather than argue over a truth that we have no right to know. BE KIND.</p>
<p>(Furthermore, any comments that are hateful towards any of the boys, their girlfriends or children, or myself and my opinions will be deleted. Please, don’t waste your time and energy trying to do the impossible and change my mind.)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I JUST WANTED TO TAKE A MOMENT TO REMIND EVERYONE TO STAY STRONG AND STAY SAFE. BLACK LIVES MATTER. TRANS RIGHTS. LOVE IS LOVE. HUMAN IS HUMAN. PLEASE, DO YOUR BEST TO BE KIND TO EVERYONE, AND ALWAYS TRY TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE, ONE DAY AT A TIME.</p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>i’ll give you everything i have.<br/>i’ll teach you everything i know.<br/>i promise i’ll do better.<br/>i will always hold you close,<br/>but i will learn to let you go.<br/>i will soften every edge.<br/>i’ll hold the world to its best.<br/>with every heartbeat i have left,<br/>i will defend your every breath.<br/>cause you are loved;<br/>you are loved more than you know.<br/>i hereby pledge all of my days to prove it so.<br/>though your heart is far too young to realize<br/>the unimaginable light you hold inside…</p>
<p>- Sleeping At Last (Light)</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>lyrics taken from "be" by gnash</p>
<p>PLAYLIST: common: 1) Harry</p>
<p>SONGS SUNG OR "WRITTEN" OR REFERENCED IN THIS CHAPTER:<br/>Bombs On Monday (Melanie Martinez)<br/>Lavender's Blue (Lily James)<br/>strangers (lovelytheband)<br/>Let the Flames Begin (Paramore)</p>
<p>enjoy :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> i thought of you with love today </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> but that is nothing new. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i thought about you yesterday </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> and days before that too. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i think of you in silence; </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i often speak your name. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> all i have are memories </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> and your picture in a frame. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> - somebody </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>well, i’m not sold on soulmates</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>but do believe in twist of fate</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The house looks like it’s supposed to be theirs.</p>
<p>It sounds stupid, when he says it out loud to himself: “This home is ours.” But there’s something so familiar about this old, Victorian wreck he’s never seen before, and in his haze Harry thinks it’s probably because of the stained glass windows on every floor.</p>
<p>The middle and third floor has shimmering glass vines to peer through, blending effortlessly into the forest of wood and brick that compiles the wall around it. The second and fourth floors have windows the color of the sea - beautiful, swirling blue like hurricanes and cloudy skies. The first and fifth floors are soft, dusty brown, like trees and cold tea, and the sight brings Harry to tears.</p>
<p>He takes slow and careful steps towards the door. He has no key, but something inside tells him the door will be open when he reaches it.</p>
<p>After all, this place is theirs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>i don’t believe in shooting stars</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>but made a wish and here we are</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His first steps inside the place are shaky and loud. Dust covers every surface, messes of paper and old antiques strewn about, but Harry doesn’t care. Right away, he feels something inside him give out, and the tears slip down his cheeks in warm rivulets.</p>
<p>It’s not home. Nowhere is home without them, but this house seems like it was built on leylines, filled with magic and sunlight. The stairs creak beneath his feet and he smiles, closing his eyes.</p>
<p>It takes only a week for everything he still wants to appear, the remainders of his favorite clothes and all of his photographs. He cooks and bakes until the entire house, all five floors, smells like cinnamon, and he burns wood and old letters in the fireplace, hoping the angels can breathe through the smoke.</p>
<p>Harry writes four new letters, each short but painfully honest, and he sends them off with little hope and overwhelming love.</p>
<p>The day he finally travels out into the dead, dead garden of sunflowers, the world ends.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>but what if we’re</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>not meant to be</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There’s no television anymore - he threw it out his first day here. It’s now crumpled in a crumbling heap in the midst of all the dead sunflowers, now joined by equally dead irises. Harry’s staring into its empty black screen when the doorbell rings, soft and clear like dewdrops in sunlight.</p>
<p>It strikes Harry, as he glances through the peephole, that he’d like to stop having to lock his door.</p>
<p>“Hey, Hazza,” the most beautiful person in the world breathes, melting into Harry’s arms as soon as he opens them. “Hey.”</p>
<p>Harry closes his eyes, brushing his fingers through Zayn’s silky, messy locks, no longer meticulously styled into quiffs or curls. There’s something so human about him now, and the way his eyes shine when he smiles, pressing a kiss to the corner of Harry’s mouth.</p>
<p>“Hi,” Harry murmurs, grasping the handle of Zayn’s suitcase in one hand and his palm in the other, pulling him inside gently. “You want first or fifth floor bedroom?”</p>
<p>Zayn offers a soft smile, squeezing Harry’s fingers.</p>
<p>“Why? I mean, fifth, obviously, but why?”</p>
<p>Harry shrugs, starting up the stairs with Zayn following close behind. It’s been six years, he thinks, they shouldn’t be so familiar still, but then again boundaries were never a thing in their band.</p>
<p>“Your eyes. The stained glass. Brown for you and Liam, so he’s the first floor. Niall and Louis have got second and fourth, because blue, and I’m in the middle. Green.”</p>
<p>It makes very little sense, probably, but Zayn seems to understand, nodding along. He smiles at the sight of the soft, comic book patterned sheets waiting for him, resting his head on Harry’s shoulder.</p>
<p>“You knew I’d pick this one, huh?”</p>
<p>Harry shrugs again. He wonders when the last time was he knew the answer to anything.</p>
<p>“The trees are tall here, but not too shadowy. There’s sunlight and birds, so you can draw our entire yard from that window.”</p>
<p>The window seat has already got all sorts of art supplies resting there, to fill the blank white walls with anything Zayn’s mind can conjure up. Harry doesn’t know if it’s enough to get him to stay, but he’ll try harder this time, he swears.</p>
<p>“Ours?” Zayn asks. “Like, yours and mine?”</p>
<p>Harry shrugs. He’s got to stop doing that.</p>
<p>“All of ours,” he answers. “If they come.”</p>
<p>Zayn smiles, but his eyes have dimmed. Harry wants the light to come back.</p>
<p>Zayn squeezes his fingers again.</p>
<p>“Of course they’ll come,” he says, always the wise one. “We all have to come home eventually.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>what if dreams</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>are meant for dreams</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Zayn takes to waiting with Harry in the doorway, watching the rain. His rooms are still blank, lifeless white, but Harry has hope for them yet. The scars on his wrists ache with every droplet that falls, but Zayn kisses each of them once before they go to sleep each night, so maybe it’ll be alright anyway.</p>
<p>The elephant stuffie from that one show in Houston follows Zayn around everywhere. Sometimes, when he’s staring off into the rain, Harry sneaks a glance at him and sees his fingers moving in slow circles around the elephant’s ear. It looks well loved, and like a blurry memory that Harry should recognize but can’t.</p>
<p>The only time Zayn lets it go is when Harry pulls him up from the ground to dance around the kitchen to every rendition of <em> You Are My Sunshine </em> he knows. Sometimes they sing along, but mostly they’re silent together, because it’s been so long they’ve forgotten how to speak aloud. But when they’re dancing, Zayn will smile, and that’s all Harry really wants anyway.</p>
<p>The world’s been shut down for a week, but theirs has just started spinning again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>i don’t believe</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>in being sad</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The other three arrive all on the same Sunday, so far apart that Harry knows for sure none of them meant to coincide.</p>
<p>“Didn’t know all it’d take was a pandemic for you to call,” Liam says as he steps out of his car at nearly four in the morning, and Harry shakes his head, letting out a laugh.</p>
<p>“You saying you would’ve infected the world a long time ago, then?” He teases, and Liam nods earnestly, then stills.</p>
<p>“No, of course not,” he whispers, because even in jokes, Liam’s stupidly kind. “Just that we missed you.”</p>
<p>Harry nods, because he understands. He moves to hug him when a soft, broken voice suddenly comes from behind him, the sound of Zayn being torn from dreams and stumbling down four flights of stairs in mismatched socks and a worn grey sweater.</p>
<p>“Leeyum?”</p>
<p>Harry steps back just enough to let Zayn through, watching as he and Liam catch each other’s eyes for the first time in six years. He wonders if they’ve always looked this shattered and lovestruck, hearts ripped open by harsh words and looming distance.</p>
<p>“Zee,” Liam murmurs in answer, surging forward to wrap his arms around Zayn’s thin, shaking waist, kissing his dark hair before pressing his face into his shoulder, breathing in all the warmth and comfort Zayn radiates. For his part, Zayn closes his eyes and cards his fingers through Liam’s hair, whispering in his ear. Nothing he says is meant for Harry to hear, he knows, so he steps back and waits for Liam to come to him, careful to keep his eyes averted to the dead roses in the garden.</p>
<p>Niall arrives around twelve, just in time for lunch. The limp, possibly overcooked linguine has gone cold by the time they let him go, Harry still clinging to his hand under the table, but they feel almost full already.</p>
<p>“How’s life been, lads?” Niall asks, pasta hanging from his mouth, and though Liam wrinkles his nose in disgust, he says nothing, pressing a kiss to a softly dozing Zayn’s head. Harry points his eyes to a loose nail in the floorboards, imagining it’s as beautiful as the dead forget-me-nots outside, and nudges it with his bare toes, not wanting to answer.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Niall says after three minutes of silence, sounding a little choked up as he swallows. “Yeah, I don’t remember most of it either.”</p>
<p>So there they stay, almost whole again, and separate only to travel to their bedrooms - Niall on the second floor, of course. The doorbell rings, loud and obnoxious with a chorus of crickets behind it, around eleven-thirty, dragging the four of them from their beds and to the door.</p>
<p>Louis is thinner. Harder, guarded, sunken into himself like an anchor in the sea. His eyes are tired, black bags sagging beneath them, and he smells like cigarettes and black coffee when he smiles, offering up to Harry a single dead bluebell.</p>
<p>Harry has never loved him more.</p>
<p>He pulls Louis into his arms without hesitation, letting the other three fold around them in their own time, and none of them say a word when Louis finally starts crying, slowly but surely sending them all stumbling to the floor as his knees crumple beneath him.</p>
<p>Zayn starts crying too, Niall’s sobs loud enough to rival his, and Liam shushes them as Louis laughs, wiping at his tears as he pulls them all closer, running his fingers through Harry’s tangled curls.</p>
<p>“Home again, boys,” he mumbles, mouth pressed into Harry’s shoulder, and Harry shakes against him. “Home again.”</p>
<p>“Finally,” Zayn breathes, and at last, after six long, lifeless years, Harry lets himself fall apart.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>so would you try</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>to understand</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They’re all a little fucked up. That’s not a secret - they don’t keep secrets anymore. They won’t let each other.</p>
<p>You see, sometimes someone’s truths need to be pulled from them like demons from below. You can’t think too long about what damage it might do because there is so much more to come if you don’t.</p>
<p>The world stays quiet. They’ve all thrown out their phones, leaving them dead on the fireplace mantle, because they don’t need them anymore. The memories are enough to keep them entertained, at least for awhile.</p>
<p>The days pass slowly. Time doesn’t care about their burdens or their boredom; it carries on even as they start to fade into themselves like ghosts into photographs. Their secrets linger in the air until they disappear back into the person they belong to, and Harry gets to thinking that maybe the five of them are too much for each other.</p>
<p>But they’re also never enough. And in the end, it doesn’t matter anyway.</p>
<p>They are all they’ve ever known. They are all there is.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>when I ask</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>if we fall apart</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They last three weeks on just Harry’s record supply, but eventually even The Beatles get old. So Louis pulls on one of Zayn’s hoodies, a pair of Niall’s sneakers, and seven of Harry’s bracelets before grabbing Liam’s hand and pulling him down to the almost broken down car at the far corner of the meadow they call their yard these days.</p>
<p>Five hours later, Zayn’s fallen asleep on the floor under the window. It’s four in the afternoon, but he hasn’t really slept in three days, so Harry covers him with a blanket while Niall kisses his forehead. Wandering towards the cleaning supplies in the kitchen, Niall takes Harry’s hand, and suddenly, for the first time in maybe fourish years, Harry wants to kiss him.</p>
<p>The thought doesn’t scare him anymore, not like it used to. Instead, when Niall startles against him as Louis bangs open the door with a loud voice announcing their new ownership of every Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran record in existence, Harry leans down and kisses Niall, hard. He holds Niall’s face in his hands like he’s something precious and fragile, like he’s a flower with wilting petals, and Niall kisses him back like he thinks the same.</p>
<p>Louis whoops, Liam clapping along, and when Harry pulls away, blushing as Niall smiles into his neck, he offers a gentle wave towards them. Louis waves back, eyes sad as he grins, and when he congratulates them, Harry hopes he can see it in his eyes -</p>
<p>
  <em> I want you too. I want all of you, forever and ever and ever. I want. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>who should I call</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>to help me mend my heart</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Niall and Harry have been kissing for a day, and already Zayn has locked himself in his room, blasting Taylor’s <em> folklore </em> album. Liam stays outside his door, knees pulled to his chest as he waits for the inevitable, and Louis flits in and out of visibility as he dances from room to room, mumbling NF lyrics under his breath without a tune.</p>
<p>None of them really cry. That’s not what they do when they’re sad.</p>
<p>Instead, they pretend everything old is new again, dressing up in blankets and calling each other <em> Your Majesty </em> and <em> my king</em><em>,</em> and when Niall kisses him again, Harry keeps his eyes open, focused on Louis in the corner of the room, watching them with a smile.</p>
<p>Dinner is slightly burned pancakes without syrup, because they don’t have any. Niall retches into the toilet for twenty minutes afterwards, only stopping when Zayn settles beside him on the tiles, silent and still. Liam, Harry, and Louis watch from the doorway, hands linked.</p>
<p>They are more broken than ever, and probably better than ever too, and really, that’s what scares Harry the most.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>if feelings fade</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>and go their separate ways</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The world continues to end. They can hear the riots even from here, miles and miles away from any city, and they lock themselves in their rooms sometimes just to feel safe. Life carries on, but Harry has this sinking feeling that it’ll be over soon.</p>
<p>“Do you ever think that maybe we should talk more?” Liam asks one day, quiet as rain. “Like, about everything?”</p>
<p>Zayn shrugs, nestled into Liam’s side. His eyes are closed, eyelashes fluttering and fingers twitching. Harry watches them from Niall’s arms, fingers threaded through Louis’, and wonders how long it’ll be until they’ve wandered too far out to come back.</p>
<p>“We love each other, Liam,” Zayn mumbles, burying his face in Liam’s sweater that is actually probably Louis’. “We’re together. We don’t need to talk about anything.”</p>
<p>And yeah, maybe Zayn left. And yeah, maybe they collapsed under the pressure. And yeah, maybe they’ve been dead for years, despite their promise to millions that they’d be alive again one day.</p>
<p>But this is all they’ve got. This is all they need. This is all they want, right?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>who’d be my light in dark</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>well, i don’t know</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The thing is, Zayn and Liam are broken. They don’t act like it, all pressed together and soft, but their edges are thorns in each other’s sides until one day Liam loses his temper and sends Zayn running from the house, crying messily as he disappears into the surrounding woods.</p>
<p>Louis sighs as the sound of Liam’s stomps up the stairs recede with distance, then sighs again at the sound of Liam crashing to the floor somewhere around the second staircase.</p>
<p>“You take Liam, yeah, Harreh?” He murmurs, pressing a kiss to the side of Harry’s head. Harry wants to kiss him on the mouth, long and languid like they did back then, but instead he just nods. Niall follows with an apologetic kiss to Harry’s lips, whispering that he’ll clean up the mess of Zayn’s shattered mug of tea, now seeping into the carpet. They both flinch as the door slams behind Louis with the wind, but force themselves to move forward all the same.</p>
<p>Harry finds Liam leaning against the banister of the third floor hallway. Everything is so sad, suddenly, and Harry wonders fleetingly if they’ve ever really been happy.</p>
<p>“You okay?” He says, because he doesn’t know what to say, and Liam just shrugs. Harry hates how much he wants to kiss all of them, all the time.</p>
<p>He doesn’t like the quiet anymore. He used to cherish it, but now it’s more like a horrible bad omen, coming for him in his dreams and following him around his waking hours.</p>
<p>“I love him,” is Liam’s only answer. And it doesn’t explain anything, not really, but it’s so heartbreakingly honest Harry wants to cry.</p>
<p>“We all love him,” he whispers. “We all love him, Liam. We all love each other, you know that.”</p>
<p>Liam shrugs again. He turns to Harry with sad, hopeless eyes, looking much too old for someone so young.</p>
<p>“I love him,” he says again, as if that makes any more sense. “I love him. I loved him back then and I love him now and I’ll probably love him forever, and he <em> left </em> me. He left… he left all of us.”</p>
<p>Harry hums, reaching down to play with Liam’s fingers. He’s too tired to think it through.</p>
<p>“Yeah, well. You have him now.”</p>
<p>Liam shakes his head. He’s getting angry, Harry can tell, but he’s not really sure what he can do. They’re all broken and cracked and scratched up, like an old teapot, and all their sadness keeps spilling out, no matter how hard they try to keep it in.</p>
<p>“No. Yes. Maybe, it doesn’t matter. He still left. He was still gone. Because I loved him, I always loved him, and he just - I just wasn’t enough for him, y’know? We weren’t… we weren’t soulmates, we weren’t you and Lou.”</p>
<p>“Bullshit,” Harry seethes, and it is. “Louis and I were just as uncertain as you and Zee, we weren’t soulmates. We aren’t -”</p>
<p>“God, Harry, that’s not what I mean and you know it,” Liam growls. Standing up, he starts to pace the length of the hallway and back again, fingers fisted in his hair.</p>
<p>“Of course you two are bloody soulmates,” he says, exasperatedly throwing his arms out to the side as he stops to face Harry, who shrinks back against the banister. “Everybody knew you loved each other. Even when you stopped talking, with no interference from management, all anybody could talk about was how much you two clearly <em> loved </em> each other. How you were so brave, so fucking brave, and how they would support you unconditionally.”</p>
<p>“Liam -” Harry tries, but he doesn’t get very far. Liam starts pacing again, steps rougher and louder against the carpet. Harry winces with every footfall.</p>
<p>“No, Harry, you don’t get it. While you and Louis pined and kissed and acted like things would last forever, we were trying to hold ourselves together. Barely anyone guessed at Zayn and me, cause we weren’t<em> in love </em> enough to warrant it. You had your tattoos and your thumbs ups and your stupid marriage conspiracies and meanwhile I had to scroll through every tweet talking about how fucking cute I was with Danielle or Sophia, and Zayn was crying in his room over his fucked-up friendship with Perrie and Niall was wondering why nobody could believe he might be queer. We were <em> dying, </em> Harry.”</p>
<p>When he finally falls to his knees in front of Harry, Harry doesn’t dare try and reach out for him. Instead, he stays quiet and still, letting the tears slip slowly down his cheeks.</p>
<p>“We’re dying,” Liam laughs hysterically, and he’s crying too. “We’re dying and the world’s ending and all our hearts are broken.”</p>
<p>Harry purses his lips, squeezing his eyes shut in a desperate attempt to stop the tears. He hears a soft <em> thump </em> as Liam collapses on his back in front of him.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry, but we weren’t… Liam, we weren’t…”</p>
<p>Liam laughs, the whole of his body shuddering with it. He shrugs, sitting up and staring hollowly at his hands.</p>
<p>“Well, at least he loved you back,” he murmurs. “At least he loved you enough to <em> stay.” </em></p>
<p>And Harry doesn’t have anything to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything at all. He just stands and leaves, wandering back downstairs to find Zayn curled in Louis’ arms and Niall shivering by the open door.</p>
<p>“Hey,” Niall murmurs when he sees him, dragging Harry closer by the hands and kissing him soft and slow. “Everything alright?”</p>
<p>Harry nods, pretending for a moment that they can stay like this, that things will be okay. Then, he lets go, pulling back until there’s only a foot of space between them, but still too many inches.</p>
<p>“I think we should probably stop kissing each other, Ni,” he murmurs. Niall doesn’t cry, doesn’t fight, just sighs sadly and jerks his head in a half-hearted nod.</p>
<p>“Yeah, probably,” he says, and Harry wonders if they’ll die like this, always close but never close enough.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>but what i do know</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>is i hope they never do</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sometimes, when it’s awfully dark at night and he’s all alone, Harry wonders how they would’ve turned out if they hadn’t ended up here. If without music, they would’ve become mediocre people with mediocre lives, or if they’d have met each other anyway.</p>
<p>He thinks, in some twisted up way, that maybe happiness was never in the cards for them. Maybe they’re just those people who are meant to fall in love but never meant to be together, he doesn’t know. He just knows that it’s been three days since Zayn and Liam were in the same room and all he can think is that they should’ve just stayed in the goddamn band.</p>
<p>Harry stares at the scars on his wrists, barely scabbed over. It doesn’t matter how many times the others ask him to stop; Zayn still won’t eat. Niall still hurls up. Liam still can’t breathe. Louis still smokes shit. The five of them are a broken, broken thing, and Harry has no interest in fixing them.</p>
<p>He and Louis aren’t soulmates. That’s impossible; Harry doesn’t believe in soulmates. Still, as he watches Louis try to comfort Niall through the mess that is Zayn and Liam’s silent standoff, he wonders if maybe they love each other.</p>
<p>He wonders if that’ll ever be enough.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>i don’t know</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>who i’d be without you</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Wrists aching, Harry wanders out into the open field that is their yard. Louis’ been gone thirteen hours now, and though the others haven’t asked after him, Harry knows they’ve all noticed. So he stumbles through the grass until he spots the boy he loved first and the man he’ll love last, passed out at the base of a moss-covered tree.</p>
<p>Louis’ cheeks are sunken, his eyes rimmed red, and as Harry takes in the assortment of cigarettes and joints surrounding Louis’ legs, he sighs. It’s too hot out here, the sun beating down on them mercilessly, and as much as Harry hates Louis right now, he doesn’t want him to burn.</p>
<p>He gathers the nearest paper rolls in his hands, cradling them gently. Falling softly to his knees, he does his best to pick out the rest from the mess of ash and residue around Louis’ feet.</p>
<p>“Thanks, Hazza.”</p>
<p>Harry looks up at Louis’ slurred and softspoken words, refusing to smile. Louis just smiles wryly and shrugs, reaching for the cigarettes and joints in Harry’s hands.</p>
<p>“Spaces between us keep getting deeper,” he sings, voice crackling like old paper and firewood. “Harder to reach ya, I don’t know why…”</p>
<p>He continues to warble along, delirious and giggling, as Harry watches him in silence, wondering if love will ever feel like in the movies.</p>
<p>“Who’s gonna be…” Louis mumbles, eyes slipping closed as he sways. “The first one… the last one to say…”</p>
<p>He stops, slumping forward. The joints come crumbling from his hands, and Harry gives up, pressing his palms into Louis’ instead of clearing them from the ground.</p>
<p>“Goodbye,” he whispers, voice catching in his throat. Louis’ hands twitch around his, and Harry’s heart stutters in his chest. “Goodbye.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>i’ve always liked the way you think</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>i’ll try to see your side of things</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They say people who cut themselves and forget to hide it want to be caught. Harry doesn’t know if that’s true, but he does know that this is the first day he’s worn short sleeves in almost three years.</p>
<p>He arrives, wrists bared, to breakfast. He’s five minutes late and the laughter dies when he enters, swallowing down his fear. He stands shaking in the doorway with his newest scars, still dripping, out for all to see.</p>
<p>He waits, mind numb and heart stopped, for them to leave.</p>
<p>Liam is the first, a hand over his mouth and tears in his eyes. His shoulder brushes Harry’s as he passes, and Harry keeps his eyes carefully trained on a single dark spot on the wooden floor.</p>
<p>Zayn takes an aborted step forward, like he wants to go after Liam, but holds himself back. They haven’t spoken in nearly a week now, but Harry’s pretty sure they’re going to run out of pride soon.</p>
<p>“How long?” Zayn asks, sounding haunted, and Harry shrugs.</p>
<p>“Couple years. Maybe four. Or five. I dunno.”</p>
<p>Zayn doesn’t flinch, doesn’t cry, just closes his eyes and sinks to the floor. Niall finally breaks from his stupor, wandering over and grasping Harry’s dripping wrists in his gentle hands.</p>
<p>“Let’s get you cleaned up,” he says with a smile. Harry wants to kiss him more than anything, but Louis is coming up to him now, splaying a hand on Harry’s back and fisting his fingers tightly around his shirt.</p>
<p>Zayn stays frozen still as Louis and Niall start to help Harry up the stairs on wobbly legs. Distantly, Harry can hear Liam screaming at the sky.</p>
<p>
  <em> One. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Two. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Three. </em>
</p>
<p>Soft, hopeless sobs break from Zayn’s trembling body, right on cue. Louis squeezes his eyes shut and starts mumbling under his breath, the lyrics to something old that never made it onto any of their albums. Harry can’t remember its name, just how brightly Niall was smiling when they wrote it.</p>
<p>As the world ends, Harry thinks, the five of them will end with it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>when you ask</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>what could we be</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>or better yet</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Everything is so, so quiet here at night. Niall’s curled against Louis on Harry’s bed, the two of them tangled up in the sheets like they belong there. Sometimes Harry wonders if maybe they do.</p>
<p>Soft, ghostly piano notes sound from downstairs. As Harry rises from the bed and starts down the stairs, he listens closer. It’s Taylor’s voice, he thinks, maybe <em> cardigan. </em></p>
<p>Light spills from the living room into the front entryway, washing the scattering dust in gold. Standing in the dark, just offset of the doorway, Harry wraps his bandaged arms around himself and watches the shadows dance across the wall.</p>
<p>Zayn’s arms are around Liam’s neck, his head on his shoulder. They sway to Zayn’s soft, unbroken voice, and the record spinning steadily in the corner. Their eyes are closed, their hands still, and Harry can’t stop staring.</p>
<p>“I knew you,” Zayn murmurs, Liam’s arms winding around him like vines and roses, his fingers curling in Zayn’s hair. “I knew you’d linger like a tattoo kiss, I knew you’d haunt all of my what-if’s, I knew…”</p>
<p>Their voices melt together as Liam joins in, grasping Zayn tight. They fit together like they’re young still, like nothing has changed.</p>
<p>“I knew you’d come back to me…”</p>
<p>Something in Harry’s chest tightens. He wonders how.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>what if we had</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>never met at all</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Their memories are tainted by time, tears, and others’ speculations. It’s hard to remember anything other than the adrenaline, the misery and the slow death, but then again they were probably happy at some point, or else they wouldn’t love each other.</p>
<p>There’s a box, under Harry’s bed, full of old papers and post-it notes and napkins with scribbled song lyrics on them. Some are famous, some never saw the light of day, but all of them are scribbled in his boys’ handwriting. Their scrawls are distinct and joyful, calm and sad, and the longer Harry stares, the less sense things make.</p>
<p>Not even a knock at the door startles him.</p>
<p><em> love you, </em> the note in his shaking hand professes. <em> love you, love you, love you. </em> Four times over, four different hands.</p>
<p>Harry stays still, staring at the note even as Liam settles behind him, wrapping his arms loosely around Harry’s waist. His lips press against Harry’s nape and stay there, warm and familiar, and Harry closes his eyes as Liam lets out a soft breath, one that tickles the hairs on the back of his neck.</p>
<p>Years since they’ve written with each other, <em> to </em> each other, and still, he knows them loop by loop and dot by dot.</p>
<p><em> management called. phone in sink, don’t worry. Z’s getting you a new one. </em>Louis.</p>
<p><em> out for drinks. Ni’s in bus if you wanna join. I’ll keep ‘em safe, don’t worry. </em>Liam.</p>
<p><em> magazines r spouting bullshit again. Li’s got ur phone for the day. hugs anytime. </em>Niall.</p>
<p><em> we banned from Twitter for few days cuzza rumors bout you and Lou. downstairs if you need us. </em>Zayn.</p>
<p>Harry doesn’t realize he’s crying until a tear slips from his cheek and onto the post-it note, smudging the ink. Squeezing his eyes shut to keep his sadness from causing further damage, he lets Liam pry the notes from his hands, settling them back into the box.</p>
<p>His fingers twitch as he reaches for his wrist, but Liam beats him to it, winding his hands around Harry’s scars. He kisses Harry’s shoulders and back and neck and hair until he stops trembling, numb and limp in Liam’s arms.</p>
<p>“Still here, y’know?” Liam murmurs against his collarbone. “Always here.”</p>
<p>Harry smiles in spite of himself, shuddering with laughter. He drops his head back onto Liam’s shoulder, wondering how it would feel if Liam kissed his mouth instead of his cheek.</p>
<p>He closes his eyes as the words from the last post-it note echo in his head.</p>
<p>See, some lyrics are terrible. They don’t rhyme, they don’t make sense; they’re more rambling than anything else. Still, Harry thinks they probably kept them between the five of them because they were too raw, too real.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> we are a star in the night </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> just hold on to me tight </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i can’t promise we’re happy </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> but we’ll be alright </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> we are galaxies and sunkissed leaves </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> and everything we want to be </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> so don’t worry bout tomorrow, </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> you know that there’s always tomorrow </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> we are a five </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> point </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> star </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Yes, he thinks, too real. Too truthful -</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> watch us burn ourselves out. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>and if we fall apart</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>who would I call</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>to help me mend my heart</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry thinks, in some romantic fucked-up kinda way, that they were always going to end up here. Of course it’s impossible, the idea that fate somehow exists and has twisted them all together irreversibly, but sometimes, when it’s really dark and really quiet and really lonely, Harry likes to believe it.</p>
<p>Attraction is simple, is the thing. It happens between friends and lovers and family, it is a simple and easy concept. You spend time with those whose attention attracts you; you are drawn to them like magnets and they are drawn to you.</p>
<p>Love, however, is far more terrifying. At the beginning, all throughout, they were beautiful, but Harry didn’t dare say he loved them. He didn’t dare think it, even after they’d all grown into an inseparable tangle of wires and hands, wandering blindly forward with nobody but each other to guide them. He’d refused, for years, to give the feeling a name, because everybody told him it was wrong, it wasn’t true, and he believed them.</p>
<p>“I’m in love with Louis Tomlinson,” Harry whispers to his mirror now, because it always felt like he had to shout it back then. Louis could never be everything, no matter how much Harry wanted him to be, because there was always Zayn and Liam and Niall, but he was who everybody expected Harry to want and so he did. Louis was the easiest option; difficult and stubborn and downright mad, but the easiest.</p>
<p>He’s said those words before. He’d meant them then and he means them now, but they still terrify him. He wonders if there will ever come a day they don’t.</p>
<p>In the safety of the darkness, in his presumed loneliness, he confesses his secrets one by one to the mirror, hoping that finally letting himself admit it will be enough.</p>
<p>“I’m in love with Niall Horan,” he says slowly, testing the words out on his tongue. The bomb implanted in his heart begins to loosen as its wires are pulled apart by Harry’s curious mind, probing at the unfinished ends and tentative beginnings.</p>
<p>Taking a deep breath, he lets slip one more.</p>
<p>“I’m in love with Zayn Malik.”</p>
<p>This one is heavier, the bomb groaning as it starts to fall, hanging from thin, straining veins. His chest is bursting with air, with open space, the pieces of his heart scattering to their rightful owners as he sets them free.</p>
<p>“I’m in love with Liam Payne,” he murmurs into the empty air, gasping as the bomb finally tumbles from the dark recesses of his arteries and plummets to his stomach, where it sits heavy and immobile, content to keep his misery within.</p>
<p>He is alone, and will remain that way, but at least he’s no longer a prisoner of his own broken, helpless mind.</p>
<p>A last confession splits the air, just as a door creaks in the distance and he hears footsteps on the carpet outside.</p>
<p>“I’m in love with all of them,” he says, closing his eyes.</p>
<p>In a way, there’s something poetic about it all - a single, broken wish spoken aloud, and its confesser still and vigil, waiting for the consequences.<br/><br/><br/></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> memory is an abstract painting </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> it does not present things as they are, but rather </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> as they feel. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> - Eugenia W. Collier </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>if feelings fade</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>we go our separate ways</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The bathroom tiles are cold beneath his bare legs. The window is open, letting in the cold spring air, but Harry can’t bring himself to close it, too enchanted by the silver moonlight spilling onto the floor.</p>
<p>His scars are raw and open, older but unhealed, and he thinks they look like something straight out of a fucking horror movie. His life, he thinks, the thriller: <em> The “Lucky” Ones. </em></p>
<p>He smiles to himself. Taylor would like that.</p>
<p>“Shouldn’t be up so late, babe.”</p>
<p>Harry’s smile turns bitter, softer. He shakes his head as Zayn settles beside him, laying his head on Zayn’s shoulder.</p>
<p>“Can’t sleep,” he murmurs, letting Zayn weave their fingers together and brush his thumb across the back of his hand. “Sad.”</p>
<p>“Mmm,” Zayn hums, pulling a Sharpie from his pocket and touching its tip to Harry’s skin. He turns each of Harry’s scars into a horizon, every one with their own suns and clouds and birds.</p>
<p>Harry closes his eyes.</p>
<p>“Sing to me.”</p>
<p>Zayn presses a kiss to his hair, then drops his head onto Harry’s. Softly, slowly, he mumbles out a sweet little melody, something familiar that Harry’s never heard before.</p>
<p>“Pinky promise, I’ll still love your garden, even with no flowers, even with no flowers,” Zayn sings, still so low and perfect. “Doctor’s orders, don’t be brokenhearted. Time will still be ours, time will still be ours.”</p>
<p>Harry smiles, lifting Zayn’s hand up to his lips to kiss the back of it.</p>
<p>“Pretty,” he mumbles. “Real pretty. Just like you, Zaynie.”</p>
<p>Zayn smiles into his hair, giving no answer. He sings on.</p>
<p>“Never thought that something, something so tragic could ever happen to our peaceful little perfect family.” Harry feels his heart twinge in his chest. “I promise, promise to love you, you and the children, carousel spinning… our neighborhood will always be this pretty.”</p>
<p>“Never heard this one before,” Harry whispers. “You write it?”</p>
<p>Zayn shakes his head, Sharpie clattering to the floor as he reaches up and wraps his arm around Harry, twisting his body until Harry is curled into him, head cradled against Zayn’s chest.</p>
<p>“No,” he answers, then ends the simple little song in a whisper, like it’s their secret. “Bombs are falling on Monday morning, waiting for the news together. An explosion, any moment, you make moments last forever, and ever.”</p>
<p><em> I love you, </em>Harry thinks but doesn’t say, and Zayn kisses his hair.</p>
<p>Harry hears it for what it is.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>who’d be my light in dark</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>well, i don’t know</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When Harry wanders sleepily downstairs at eleven a.m., Sharpie still rampant on his arms, Liam rushes towards him and envelopes him in a hug.</p>
<p>“Mmph.” Harry tries to smile, closing his eyes to the feel of Liam’s lips against his neck. “Hello.”</p>
<p>Liam doesn’t let go, sinking to the floor with Harry still in his arms. He pulls back just enough to grasp Harry’s wrists, brushing his thumbs over Harry’s raised scars.</p>
<p>“Oh my god,” he murmurs. “Oh my god, Harry. Hazza, oh my god.”</p>
<p>Zayn inches closer from the corner where he’s been slumped, hands stretched out towards them. As Harry touches Liam’s face, pushing his hand into Liam’s hair, Liam starts to choke, gasping for air as he grips Harry’s wrist harder and harder. He shakes enough to knock a vase from its perch on the shelf they’ve been leaning against, and it crashes to the ground and shatters into a million pieces.</p>
<p>In wake of the noise, Liam scrambles backwards into the wall, Zayn rushing forward to hold him steady while Harry shivers in fear, big, fat tears slipping down his cheeks as he claws at his wrists. Zayn reaches for him too, but Harry cries out as soon as their fingers brush and skitters away almost desperately, falling right into Niall.</p>
<p>Already shaking, Niall takes one look at Harry’s shredded wrists and presses both hands against his mouth, bolting for the bathroom. Harry can hear him retching in between sobs.</p>
<p>Trying to breathe, Harry focuses his eyes on Zayn and Liam, who’ve settled by the window on the floor, Liam’s hands grasped tightly in Zayn’s. Everytime Niall wretches, Zayn winces, drawing a whimper from Liam.</p>
<p>Harry closes his eyes. He breathes in, then out, then back in, then out again. He counts to ten, finding the silence unnerving, and opens his eyes to see Liam passed out in Zayn’s arms, and Niall curled against the bathroom sink with his head in his hands.</p>
<p>Harry raises his eyes to meet Louis’, who stands still at the top of the first staircase with a blunt between two fingers.</p>
<p>“Lou,” Harry whispers.</p>
<p>Louis shakes his head, then turns and disappears upstairs.</p>
<p>Wrapping his arms around himself, Harry closes his eyes and lets the lyric flash through his mind three times over.</p>
<p>
  <em> What a shame we all became such fragile broken things. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> What a shame, we all became, such fragile, broken things. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> What. A. Shame. We. All. Became. Such. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Fragile. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Broken. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Things. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>but what i do know</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>is i hope we never do</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry thinks, in the grand scheme of things, it could be worse. They could be dead.</p>
<p>Other than that, he’s not sure it’s ever been this bad. Yeah, sure, they’re together, but there’s this old, bitter resentment that’s built up between them after so many years, and it twists his veins into knots and makes it hard to breathe.</p>
<p>He doesn’t think it’s fixable. After six fucking years of pretending they can live without each other, the cracks have broken into pieces, leaving them stranded islands in the same ocean.</p>
<p>They’re in the same room, at least. Louis has his back on the floor and his legs up against the window, burnt out blunt hanging from his lips and eyes bloodshot. Zayn sits barely a foot from him, arms wrapped around the knees pulled to his chest. He stares resolutely at a spot on the carpet, mouth caught in a frown, lost in thought.</p>
<p>Liam is curled in the middle of the couch, tapping out unfinished beats on the cushion next to him. He nods his head right and left every few minutes, presumably along to the song in his head. Niall watches him, criss-cross in front of the fireplace with his hands wrapped around his feet.</p>
<p>Harry, settled in the doorway with his legs splayed out in front of him, occupies himself by weaving tiny braids into his hair.</p>
<p>“La la la,” he mutters to himself. “Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly… lavender’s green…”</p>
<p>Zayn raises his eyes to watch Harry, who sways slightly to the melody plaguing his mind. The others stay silently still, like the dead.</p>
<p>“When I am king, dilly dilly, you shall be queen…” Harry giggles to himself, drawing Niall’s eyes to him as well. Even Liam’s gaze flickers towards him for a moment before his eyes close once again.</p>
<p>“Lavender’s green, dilly dilly, lavender’s blue!” The note is sharp and pitchy, and Zayn winces. Harry lets out a loud laugh, slumping forward so his curls hang down and hide his face.</p>
<p>“You must love me, dilly dilly, for I love you…” Harry hiccups, finally earning Louis’ hazy attention. “Who told me so, dilly dilly, who told you so?”</p>
<p>He looks up at them, meeting Zayn’s eyes and grinning.</p>
<p>“That was my heart, dilly dilly, that told me so. I told myself, dilly dilly, I told me so.”</p>
<p>With that, he collapses into giggles, rolling around on the floor in glee. Niall chokes on the breath he’s been holding, and tears stream slowly down Liam’s cheeks, but Zayn and Louis continue only with their dead, silent stares.</p>
<p>“I love you,” Harry snickers, wiping his sleeves over his wet eyes. “I love all of you, how stupid is that? All of you. All of you at once, I’m so stupid. So so stupid…”</p>
<p>A slow, sly grin stretches across Louis’ face.</p>
<p>“Love you too, Hazza,” he drawls, blowing out smoke, and Harry giggles as the others murmur in assent.</p>
<p>He didn’t say in love. He didn’t admit it. He didn’t confess to goddamn anything.</p>
<p>Nobody knows.</p>
<p>And yet, when he meets Zayn’s endless eyes, his thrumming heart suddenly goes still and quiet.</p>
<p>He forgets, sometimes, that somehow, someway, Zayn always knows everything.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>i don’t know</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>who i’d be without</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s quiet, after that. There’s an unspoken, momentary lull in their chaotic rhythm, giving them time to breathe again. Liam is scared of him, Harry thinks, because he’s gone fucking crazy, but then again Zayn’s started carving his murals into the wall instead of just painting them and Louis is laughing like all the fucking time, like a hyena, and Niall just mutters to himself and dances while he cooks and yeah, they’re a bit fucked up. Still, when morning comes they’re close as ever, all up in each other’s personal space like they haven’t grown older, like the early days have never died.</p>
<p>Harry has taken to watching them while he cooks, listening to the rain pour down outside. Zayn passes out in Liam’s arms pretty soon after he comes down from his bedroom, having not slept for three days now. He looks so peaceful in Liam’s lap, almost like nothing can go wrong, and Harry wonders what he’s dreaming as Liam runs his gentle fingers through Zayn’s soft, wild hair.</p>
<p>Niall is swaying to the song playing softly on repeat from the record player; Melanie Martinez’s <em> Recess, </em> Harry thinks. The rain clatters against the window on beat, and Niall smiles when Louis presses a kiss to the side of his head, their hands tangled together on the table.</p>
<p>Harry lets himself smile as he tears his eyes from them, flipping the slightly burnt pancakes. When he looks up again, Liam is watching him with a soft smile, eyes sad but twinkling.</p>
<p>“Hi,” Harry says, grinning.</p>
<p>Liam’s lips twitch, but his smile holds. Eyes flickering to Zayn’s head on his chest, he whispers, “Hi.”</p>
<p>Harry turns back to his pancakes, letting his eyes wander out the window and through the rain.</p>
<p>The world is ending, and life is good.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>you and all</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>your little things</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Their sleep schedules are as fucked up as their minds. At three a.m., Harry wakes up in a pile of stuffed animals. He smiles, looking around at their big glass eyes and rainbow-colored fur, and wonders what sort of magic made them appear in the middle of the night. Niall and Liam, probably.</p>
<p>From below, he hears Taylor’s voice singing <em> betty, </em> harmonicas and guitars blasting from the record player. He wanders downstairs in only boxers and an unzipped hoodie, meeting Louis halfway there. Louis tangles their fingers together without a word, and grins at the sight that greets them from the living room door.</p>
<p>A single lamp remains on, washing the room in gold and shadows, and Zayn and Liam and Niall are spinning in some sort of circle, laughing as they stumble into each other and crash to the ground, only to bounce right back up again. Zayn is too skinny in his grey sweater with the floppy sleeves, but his eyes are golden and glistening as he drags Harry to his side, pressing their bodies together, sweet and close.</p>
<p>Louis joins Niall and Liam in their spinning, collapsing into Liam’s side as they all double over in laughter and tumble to the floor. Zayn’s shining eyes stay fixed on Harry’s as he grins, the two of them swaying back and forth in an awkward, slow waltz.</p>
<p>“Yeah, I showed up at your party,” Zayn mumbles, sniggering as Liam bumps into him from behind and knocks him closer to Harry. Raising his eyes to Harry’s, his grin shrinks into something soft and wistful, like a hazy memory just out of reach.</p>
<p>“Will you have me?” He sings to Harry, then spins into Liam, biting his lip as Liam stares with stars in his eyes. “Will you love me?”</p>
<p>To Louis, quiet and sad, he sinks into those familiar tattooed arms, ducking his head into Louis’ neck. “Will you kiss me on the porch in front of all your stupid friends?”</p>
<p>Louis turns scarlet as Zayn lifts his head to meet his eyes, sticking his tongue out the slightest bit.</p>
<p>“If you kiss me,” Zayn murmurs, and Louis swallows. “Will it be just like I dreamed it?”</p>
<p>He pulls himself from Louis and buries himself in Niall, eyes twinkling as he whispers in his ear.</p>
<p>“Will it patch your broken wings?”</p>
<p>Zayn falls back into Harry like it’s nothing, leaving Louis weak in the knees and held up between Liam and Niall, all warm and glowing in the golden light. He’s so beautiful, even after time and hate have caught up to them, and Harry loves him - so fucking much.</p>
<p>“I’m only seventeen,” Zayn mutters, hands still against Harry’s chest. “I don’t know anything, but I know I miss you…”</p>
<p>Harry leans down, mouth open on a raspy breath, and stops three inches from Zayn’s lips, a hand on his cheek. He brushes his thumb across those perfect cheekbones, something warm like melted chocolate streaming through his veins as Zayn smiles, small and shy.</p>
<p>Harry wants to kiss him.</p>
<p>Instead, he pulls back just enough to look up at the others, who are smiling like nothing’s wrong, Niall strumming his guitar in the rocking chair and Liam and Louis twirling each other until they can’t walk straight.</p>
<p>Zayn leans up and kisses Harry’s cheek, pressing his forehead into Harry’s shoulder. They go back to swaying, rhythmic and quiet as Harry tries not to think too hard about how familiar Zayn’s hand in his has become, and Zayn keeps mumbling along to <em> betty </em> as they dance.</p>
<p>“The worst thing that I ever did was what I did to you…”</p>
<p>Harry closes his eyes, pretending this is ten years ago.</p>
<p><em> No, </em> he thinks. <em> No, no, no. </em>Oblivious to the war in Harry’s head, Zayn sings on -</p>
<p>“Would you have me? Would you want me?” and Harry thinks, <em> Yes. </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>you’ve taught me love</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>you make me sing</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In the end, their love story is the simplest one there is. Despite how messy and complicated the plot may be, drama and heartbreak hidden around every corner, their <em> story </em> is simple. It was when it began, and it remains so.</p>
<p>The record player keeps spinning as the sun starts to rise. Harry watches from the doorway, criss-cross on the hardwood, and takes comfort in the soft snores and sniffles surrounding him, Niall in Liam’s arms and Zayn in Louis’. Canyon City sings like pink and orange bleeding into blue, and Harry watches the sky follow as the lyrics echo through the endless empty halls.</p>
<p>“I don’t blame you for the winter,” he murmurs. “Or the way I feel when I’m alone.”</p>
<p>He glances to the side, at Zayn’s untroubled face tucked into the crook of Louis’ neck, and smiles.</p>
<p>“And I won’t hold your smile against you, or write your name into a song,” he sings on, thinking of their old music video and how they’d called Zayn a million different names in his costume. Veronica, publicly, but when they were alone, something different, softer, whispered in his ear like a prayer.</p>
<p>“Olivia,” Harry whispers. Reaching out, he curls his fingers around Zayn’s. In his sleep, Zayn holds on, and Harry feels his eyes tearing up as his lips pull themselves into a smile.</p>
<p>“Honestly, we could be happy. If we first taught our hearts to stand.”</p>
<p>Louis snuffles in his sleep, so Harry inches close enough to take his hand too. He turns his eyes to Liam and Niall, across the entryway and curled in the corner, and then back to his hands, tangled with those of his love’s ghosts.</p>
<p>“But just so long as I need to need you,” he trails off, losing himself in thought. “Just so long as… I need to need you…”</p>
<p>Louis’ head slips onto Harry’s shoulder. Harry closes his eyes.</p>
<p>“When everybody’s gone,” he says, too tired to sing anymore, “could you just stay?”</p>
<p>They don’t say a word, all lost to dreams, but Harry hears their answer in the wind and the sun and the door slamming shut -</p>
<p>
  <em> ALWAYS. </em>
</p>
<p>See, their story, quite simply, goes like this: five boys meet.</p>
<p>They fall in love.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>i wonder if</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>you’ll ever know the truth</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Where do you think we go, then?” Louis asks, staring up at Harry through half-lidded eyes. “The broken hearts?”</p>
<p>Harry brushes his fingers through Louis’ feathery hair, bending down to drop a kiss to the head in his lap. Louis smiles, holding Harry’s hand a little tighter, and the rain falls silent and slow from the grey sky above them.</p>
<p>“I don’t know, Louis,” Harry whispers. “Maybe it isn’t a single place. Maybe we just keep travelling, looking for a fix.”</p>
<p>Louis hums, closing his eyes. Harry slides his hand up Louis’ chest, slipping his fingers under his shirt and over his heart, tapping his finger against it in time with the beat.</p>
<p>He sways for a moment to the song of Louis’ heart with his eyes closed, then opens them to Louis’ twinkling ones, a bright grin dancing across his cheeks.</p>
<p>“I loved you,” Louis murmurs, reaching up to twirl one of Harry’s curls around his finger. “I loved you so much back then. Still do, to be honest. Always thought you were it. The End.”</p>
<p>Harry smiles, leaning down to press his forehead against Louis’. They don’t close their eyes, and it’s too close to be comfortable, but they’re used to the awkwardness by now, Harry thinks.</p>
<p>“Yeah?” He mumbles. “Have regrets, Tomlinson?”</p>
<p>Louis’ eyes are soft when he answers, sadness spilling into them like the sun through the clouds.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” he says. “How about you, Tomlinson?”</p>
<p>Harry blushes pink at the name, <em> his </em> name, though no certificates or records or photos exist to prove it so. Just blurry memories of a drunken night in a hotel room, and five beautiful boys making naive promises.</p>
<p>“Tons,” he admits, touching his lips to Louis’ forehead again before pulling back. “Every day. But what’s done is done.”</p>
<p>Louis gives him a wistful smile, touching a hand to Harry’s cheek. Harry feels his eyes burn with tears and blinks them away, lifting his hand to curl around Louis’.</p>
<p>Soulmates and bullshit; they’re loneliness and strangers and poetry. They’re stolen kisses and late nights and warm sheets. They’re lovers; they’re secrets.</p>
<p>Harry wouldn’t have them any other way.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>that you and</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>all the things you do</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>put every piece of me in two</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry gets sick on a Monday.</p>
<p>In hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have been outside in the rain so long. But he’s in love, so fuck it, if he wants to sit with Louis in the rain and mumble secrets into his skin until he can’t feel his own bones then he’s damn well allowed to.</p>
<p>It’s just a cold. Seriously, it’s just a cold, but that doesn’t make it any less terrifying. Because it’s the end of the world, and the world is ending because of a fucking pandemic, and while Harry drifts in and out of consciousness Liam panics, trying to breathe as the air flushes out of him like an east wind.</p>
<p>He can hear it now, if he listens hard enough. Monday has turned into Wednesday, and Liam still refuses to leave his room. If the dreams are bad enough he tears at his hair, digs his nails into his palms until they bleed. Louis is the one who stops him, all bloodshot eyes and slow hands.</p>
<p>Niall bustles around below, knocking pots and pans together as he tries to cook. In his worry, he’s been cleaning like mad, and the dusty charm of the house has almost entirely disappeared thanks to his fear, leaving nothing but sterilized shiny white in its wake.</p>
<p>Zayn, for his part, stays by Harry’s bedside, holding his hand. Sometimes he leaves to help with Liam, and Louis or Niall come and sit with Harry for a bit, but mostly it’s Zayn who stays with him, vigil and quiet, singing lullabies and old forgotten indie songs.</p>
<p>Harry sleeps. And in his dreams, the five of them are shiny and new like the house, all clean and healthy and unbent. They’re perfect and boring and in love with the people the world wants, the singular, beautiful, good girls the world wants.</p>
<p>They wouldn’t be happy, he thinks, if that were true, but at least they’d be simple. At least they’d be easy.</p>
<p>“You alright, Hazza?” Zayn mumbles, shaking him from his train of thought, and Harry offers a sullen smile.</p>
<p>“Just thinkin’ about Taylor, is all,” he says. “Taylor and you all. The people I miss.”</p>
<p>Zayn cracks a wry smile, lifting Harry’s hand to his lips and kissing his knuckles.</p>
<p>“We miss you too, H,” he murmurs. “So get better, okay? We don’t got forever.”</p>
<p>Harry closes his eyes instead of rolling them. Of course they don’t, he thinks, but then maybe they do.</p>
<p>The end of the world ain’t ending any time soon.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>and if we part forever</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>i’ll be blue</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When Harry comes to again, it’s cold. He feels like he’s been dipped into the deepest pits of a glacial ocean, slowly freezing into an ice cube like that American hero they made a movie about. He can feel that his arms are damp with sweat and his fingers are dripping around whoever’s hand he’s holding, but still everything is so, so cold.</p>
<p>“He’s… you and Louis… we can’t…”</p>
<p>His ears have cottonballs in them, he’s sure of it. The words are nonsensical and slurred together; it’s like living in a colorful cloud. There’s bursts of bright pastel everywhere when he closes his eyes, but no sound. Sometimes a voice breaks through, but he can’t figure out who it is.</p>
<p>“Hazza… store… worse. Niall… medicine…”</p>
<p>With every word, Harry giggles, but he can’t open his eyes to see who’s talking. They go quiet when they hear him, and suddenly there are hands on his chest and his face.</p>
<p>“Harry…”</p>
<p>“... sick…”</p>
<p>“... better?”</p>
<p>“Love you…”</p>
<p>Harry sniffles and nuzzles into whoever’s hand cups his cheek. They brush their thumb across his skin, and soft lips touch his forehead.</p>
<p>“Still hot…”</p>
<p>“... ice bath…”</p>
<p>“... hospital…”</p>
<p>“Liam…”</p>
<p>Harry mumbles something. He’s not sure what, but it makes sense, he knows. It’s important.</p>
<p>Nobody answers him, though. Somewhere in the distance, he thinks he hears someone crying, but that can’t be right. Why would anybody be crying?</p>
<p>“Harry…” Somebody murmurs. “Harry, listen. We need…”</p>
<p>He shakes his head, or at least he tries to. The colors are fading and it’s so, so cold… he wants to sleep.</p>
<p>“Harry…”</p>
<p>“You…” Harry manages, one last giggle bursting from his lips before he sinks back into the pillows, falling beneath the ocean waves.</p>
<p>The hands slip away.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>but if we decide</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>to separate</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry thinks, sometimes, their regrets are what define them. The things they fucked up, the places they went and never came back from. Dirty, thoughtless nights beneath each other’s hands that they’re always trying to forget.</p>
<p>When he wanders downstairs, he finds golden light spilling into the hallway from the living room. On shaky legs, he makes his way down the steps, grasping the railing like a lifeline. He shouldn’t be out of bed, he knows, but he’s so tired of being sick and cold and alone.</p>
<p>“He’s gonna be okay, right?”</p>
<p>The whisper is scared and hoarse, and Harry closes his eyes as Louis’ voice answers Niall’s.</p>
<p>“Yeah, love. ‘Course.”</p>
<p>Niall sighs. Harry peeks around the corner, heart racing in his chest, and finds the two of them sitting criss-cross on the couch, facing each other. Their foreheads are touching, their eyes closed and hands on each other’s necks. The scene is so intimate, so unfamiliar and old and <em> beautiful</em><em>,</em> and Harry hates everything about himself that loves it, sucking in a sharp breath.</p>
<p>“I never wanted this, Lou,” Niall murmurs. “Just wanted you all. My boys. My…”</p>
<p>“Home,” Louis answers for him, opening his clear blue eyes and smiling just the tiniest bit. “Our home. Our fucked-up little family.”</p>
<p>Niall lets out a quiet laugh. Blinking back the tears in his eyes, Harry starts to retreat back towards the stairs as their whispers continue. Stupid, loving little whispers that Harry feels like shit for wanting.</p>
<p>“I love you,” Niall says, and as Louis answers in kind Harry reaches for the banister and hobbles up the stairs as fast as he can, not caring how many trinkets and vases he knocks over. Locking himself in the bathroom as he hears the others start to clamor around for him, he reaches for the razors in the medicine cabinet with trembling hands, slashing his wrists in two clean cuts across the faded remnants of Zayn’s inky love.</p>
<p>Fuck it all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>before i go</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>i’ve gotta say that</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>After a restless night of crying on cold tiles, Harry manages to crawl to the door and wrestle it open with his pale, shivering hands. He drags himself to the pile of clothes rumpled in the corner and pulls out a black shirt with too-long sleeves. He’s pretty sure it’s Zayn’s, but it’s not like it matters. They’ve lived in each other’s pockets for years.</p>
<p>He tries to stand once he’s dressed, gripping the dresser for support. He stumbles towards the door on wobbly knees, making his way to the banister before stopping and sighing in defeat.</p>
<p>Stairs are not going to happen today, no matter how much he wants them to.</p>
<p>Instead, Harry settles on the top step, shivering. He feels a bit better, but there’s still something so daunting and impossible about the idea of living again. Death would’ve been simpler, he thinks, but then again, everybody told him love would be simple too.</p>
<p>“Hazza?”</p>
<p>Harry opens his tired eyes to see Liam at the bottom of the stairs, smiling up at him with kind eyes. Harry wants to kiss him, to hold him and to love him, to say that they made it and have it be true.</p>
<p>Instead, he offers a weak smile and a shrug when Liam asks him if he’s feeling better. He draws his arms closer to his chest as Liam climbs up the steps and sits down beside him, reaching for Harry’s hand.</p>
<p>As his fingers brush Harry’s wrists, his scars cry out in pain and he flinches, pulling away. They’re pretty well bandaged, but still as fresh and new as dewdrops on a flower, and if he presses too hard then they start bleeding again.</p>
<p>The fondness seeps from Liam’s eyes, leaving a bone-deep sadness in its wake as Liam tries again to take Harry’s wrists in his hands, gentler this time. He brushes his thumbs over where the cuts lie beneath Harry’s sleeves, and once again Harry winces.</p>
<p>“Harry,” Liam says, raising his brown eyes to meet Harry’s green. “Did you hurt yourself again?”</p>
<p>God, Harry misses the days when he could lie.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” he mumbles. “Where’re the others?”</p>
<p>“Out,” Liam answers, brow furrowed. “Groceries and shit. What happened, Hazza?”</p>
<p>Harry shrugs. How is he supposed to explain what nobody can understand?</p>
<p>“Lonely,” he mutters. “Always so alone. Forever’s bullshit. Love always disappears.”</p>
<p>Liam hums, rolling up Harry’s sleeves as carefully as he can. He makes no sound as he examines the scars, thumbing the bandages blotched with red. Harry waits for the panic attack, not sure what he’ll do when it comes, but Liam’s pulse stays steady against his skin.</p>
<p>“Well,” Liam finally says, leaving Harry’s sleeves up as he tangles their fingers together, “me too. But you know I’ll love you til’ we die, right? If forever’s bullshit and everything. We all will.”</p>
<p>Harry shrugs. He rests his head on Liam’s shoulder, wondering when everything got so fucking bad.</p>
<p>“No you won’t,” he says. “But thanks anyway.”</p>
<p>Liam kisses his head. It’s so perfectly quiet, here in the empty morning with nobody but one of the four boys he’s not supposed to love yet does anyway next to him. There’s something so wretchedly poetic about it, Harry thinks. He wonders if this is how they’ll die - silent and still, with nothing but distance between them no matter how close they get.</p>
<p>“Okay, fine,” Liam says. “It’s true, but how about this - I promise to love you tomorrow. Maybe not the others, maybe no one else, maybe not for forever, but I’ll love you tomorrow. Is that okay?”</p>
<p>Harry shrugs, then nods. Liam kisses his head again, and Harry thinks he gets it - tomorrow is a constant. There is no day without one.</p>
<p>“I’ll love you tomorrow too, then,” he murmurs. “Promise.”</p>
<p>Liam hums, and they stay there, together and alone and in love and friends and everything fucked up in the world.</p>
<p>Harry wonders if this is how Zayn felt, when the crowds and cameras were engulfing him and shoving him closer to the door that led out of their band and out of their lives. If this is what hell is, so quiet and still and empty. If this is their ending.</p>
<p>Mostly, though, Harry wonders why peace is a stranger. Mostly, Harry wonders if she’ll ever be their friend.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>if we fall apart</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>i’ll be right here</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>to help you mend your heart</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry knows better than to bore people with lyrics about finding home in people. Sure, that’s what they sang and performed and sold, but their real songs, the ones that really mean something, they’re not that cliche. They’re deeper, jagged, with pieces that don’t quite fit the way anyone expects them to. If Harry were to write a song, to really <em> write </em> a song, it’d be messy and nonsensical and not weighed down by useless metaphors - he doesn’t belong anywhere, but he’s chosen to spend his life with these four boys.</p>
<p>Harry doesn’t believe in fate. He used to, but anyone can give up on anything when given enough reason.</p>
<p>Zayn’s room is that kind of space that’s always open and hot and colorful, like the inside of a child’s dollhouse. On the fifth floor, there’s sunlight spilling in through the windows almost always, and he even leaves the windows open for the wind and rain to sweep in. There’s paintings covering nearly every inch of his walls, a mix of fantastical and realistic portraits of the four of them. Mostly Liam, and never Zayn - he’s never been one for vanity, despite what they all say. Harry loves him.</p>
<p>Now, Harry sits criss-cross on Zayn’s unmade bed. It’s early in the afternoon, he thinks, maybe, so the others are probably starting to wander into the kitchen for lunch. If Zayn ate, he probably would too.</p>
<p>Harry stays. He’s not that hungry at the moment - he understands, for the first time in a long while, why Niall and Zayn consider food an enemy. He’ll eat later, sure, but for now, he’s content to sit still and watch Zayn draw, both sleeves rolled up to show his scars.</p>
<p>Harry closes his eyes and sways to the music from the record player. They have five of them now, one for each floor, because they’ve been here long enough to figure out it’ll be awhile til they leave. They’ve all got their own taste, and the things they share, but their own music has been banned from the house. There’s no sense in dredging up the past where it has no business being.</p>
<p>Now, Harry mumbles along to <em> From Eden, </em>wondering why Hozier is always on repeat in Zayn’s room. He says it’s cause it helps him draw, but Harry doubts it. Music is too important to all of them for it to be simply that.</p>
<p>As the instrumental bridge kicks in, Harry stands and slowly makes his way to Zayn, wrapping his arms around him from behind. Zayn doesn’t stop drawing, but doesn’t pull away, so Harry presses closer until every part of them is touching, burying his face in Zayn’s shoulder.</p>
<p>“I love you,” he murmurs. The words are meaningless now, but Zayn probably understands.</p>
<p>“Mmm,” Zayn hums, adding flecks of gold to a new Liam’s eyes. “Love you too, Hazza.”</p>
<p>Happiness is rare these days, and peace is impossible, but this is nice. As well as it gets, Harry thinks.</p>
<p>Closing his eyes, he lets his body move with Zayn’s and hopes their lives are as tangled as their selves.</p>
<p><em> Honey, you’re familiar, </em> he sings along in his head. <em> Like my mirror, years ago. </em></p>
<p>“You alright, Harreh?”</p>
<p>
  <em> Innocence died screaming; honey, ask me, I should know. </em>
</p>
<p>Harry opens his eyes, smiling and kissing Zayn’s neck. He hums his assurance, and they move on.</p>
<p>
  <em> I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>if feelings fade</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>we go our separate ways</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>i’ll be your light through dark</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sometimes, when they’re all really bored, they’ll dance in the living room with all the blinds closed and the lights off. Niall and Louis tricked Liam into buying like a thousand glowsticks three weeks ago, so they blast <em> Cosmic Love </em>by Florence + the Machine and they throw their glowing hands up in the air to the beat.</p>
<p>They wear so many they don’t look human anymore, just strange shadows with luminescent wrists and necks and ankles. Somehow, they never crash into anything, so there’s nothing to hear but the great, booming beat shaking the house in the dark.</p>
<p>Harry, donned in green, finds himself dancing by the fireplace, watching the others as they tangle themselves together into a beautiful rainbow of future memories.</p>
<p>Zayn, shining purple and pink, presses himself against Liam’s soft orange, the two of them grinning about nothing and swaying to the rhythm of each other’s hearts. Niall does random Irish dances, lighting the room up yellow and blue as Louis laughs and twirls, spinning into a single soft column of red.</p>
<p>Dizzy, he collides with Harry, and without missing a beat, Harry twirls him once more before drawing him close to his chest, pressing his grin to Louis’ cheek. They laugh and they cry and they dance, and they all end up back together in the end, holding hands in one gigantic circle of rainbow stars.</p>
<p>Harry doesn’t know how he fell in love with all of them. He couldn’t tell you when or why either. As stupid as it is, Harry can’t figure out the answers to those questions no matter how late he stays up wondering, and he thinks it’s because maybe they have no answers at all.</p>
<p>These boys are his constants. They are his stars. They are his ending.</p>
<p>Soulmates don’t exist, not really. Still, Harry finds himself wondering if maybe they are anyway.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>and even though i’ll know</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>you’re not alone</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>one thing’ll still be true</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sometimes his scars break open and bleed when he scratches absentmindedly at his arms. Harry watches them in fascination, taking in the eerie silence with which they drip onto the floor. Then, picking up a pen, he starts to write an honest song for the first time in almost six years.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> it might feel like you’re dying </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> but you’re not dead yet </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The blood falls to the paper, staining the ink with red. The words become smudged behind blood and tears, but Harry can’t bring himself to stop crying and fix himself up.</p>
<p>This has to come out. He has to let it out.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> you’ve got air in your lungs </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> a beating heart in your chest </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ten years. Ten <em> fucking </em> years.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> and it goes, </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> and it goes, </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> and it goes… </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When Zayn left, Harry was the first one to stop talking to him. It was an accident, really - he just kept forgetting. He hates himself for the way he let Zayn down, then milked the hateful jokes for years; Zayn never deserved anything but love from them, even at his worst. Still, here they are, five boys living in a house in the middle of nowhere while the world ends around them, because in the end Zayn will always come back to them. And they know that, Harry thinks, or else they never would’ve let him leave at all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> isn’t it strange that after all that </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i gave you love, it never came back </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And fuck, Harry and Louis. Harry and Louis, the monster, the broken queers who hated themselves so much for their love that they let everything and everyone around them burn. Lyric changes, hands brushing, rainbow bears… none of it matters, not really. They were real, sure, but they weren’t happy, not even together. They had no choice, not truly, because everyone expected it of them and they loved each other enough, so they went along with it. The truth is, Harry’s not sure they ever would’ve lasted. Souls aren’t supposed to be in five pieces, just two, but when it comes down to it Harry’s soul could never only love Louis, and Louis’ could never only love him - that’s not how their useless puzzle works.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> isn’t it strange that after all that </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> too much baggage to ever unpack </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Now, Niall wanders in from the hall. His hands shake as he wipes up the blood and folds the papers, prying the pen from Harry’s hand. He cleans almost frantically, bothered by the mess. Harry tries to apologize, reaching for him, but Niall just shakes his head, offering a tired smile.</p>
<p><em> Strangers at last</em><em>,</em> Harry thinks, taking Niall’s face in his hands and kissing him. It’s stupid and cold and useless, just like their puzzle, just like their lives, but Harry misses him. So here they are.</p>
<p>Again, and again, and again.</p>
<p>Pulling away, he licks his lips, only letting his eyes meet Niall’s for a moment.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” he rasps, closing his eyes as Niall starts to bandage his wrists.</p>
<p>Niall shrugs.</p>
<p>“It’s alright.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>i don’t know</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>who i’d be without</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s been a long time since the silence was dangerous. Before, silence meant secrets and loss and terror, but at least silence meant obedience. Before, silence meant safety, because if they didn’t speak to each other then they could pretend all they wanted what the others were thinking.</p>
<p>Now, the silence is dangerous. Deep, black, bottomless waters that Harry is drowning in, stranded so far from the old blue shore.</p>
<p>He’s doing his best to stay away from Niall, and Niall makes no effort to draw him closer. Harry fucked up, he knows, and they’re broken now. If he thought they were shattered before, now they’re disintegrating, and for the millionth time today Harry wonders if happy endings really exist.</p>
<p>Louis, he’s high. Smoking something in the living room, sprawled on the couch. As Harry watches, curled into himself in the corner, Liam starts crying, covering his face with his hands to try and stop it. Louis stares at him, completely apathetic, and blows out another round of smoke in Liam’s direction.</p>
<p>God, they’re fucked up.</p>
<p>Zayn is slow to anger, they all know it. He lives in purple and red hues, choosing the calm purple every time. But the problem with Zayn and Louis, the one that really ruins them, is that they are each other’s pressure points. Nothing in the world sets them off like each other.</p>
<p>“Are you ever sober?” Zayn spits, stomping over to the couch and wrenching the blunt from Louis’ fingers. “I mean, do you ever even try to actually be here with us anymore? God, Lou.”</p>
<p>Louis shrugs, closing his eyes and turning away. Zayn shakes his head with a sigh, taking a step backwards when Liam sobs, a gutteral thing like a dead man’s cry, and Harry watches as Niall reaches for Liam and Zayn chooses red.</p>
<p>“No,” he says, grasping Louis’ wrists with harsh hands. He pulls him up, letting go and not caring when Louis drops to the floor on his ass, laughing.</p>
<p>“No,” he says again. “No. No, Louis, you can’t do this. You’re so fucking stupid to do this, you little bitch. We love you, you know that. We should be enough for you. God, Louis, when will this end? When will real life be enough?”</p>
<p>Louis just keeps laughing, rolling around on the floor now. Harry doesn’t believe in a god, doesn’t believe in much of anything anymore, but he finds himself praying anyway.</p>
<p>“Really?” Louis finally answers, gasping for breath as Liam breaks down in Niall’s arms. “Really, Zayn?”</p>
<p>In a bad imitation of Zayn’s accent, he juts out his lower lip and says, “Oh no, I’m sad. Look at me, I’m Zayn Malik, too beautiful and too misunderstood to care. Look at me, I’m Zayn Malik, and I’m just gonna leave everything and everybody behind because I’m <em> sad. </em> I’m <em> sick.” </em></p>
<p>“I was, Louis!” Zayn shouts, throwing his arms out to the sides. “I still am! And fuck it all, maybe I made some mistakes, but we all did! And you have no right to -”</p>
<p>“You were my best friend!” Louis roars, grabbing Zayn’s wrists and shaking them. Harry can smell something burning.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s the blunt on the carpet, or maybe it’s their love for each other. Maybe it’s the world.</p>
<p>Who knows. Who cares.</p>
<p>“You were my best friend,” Louis chokes out, on his knees now. Zayn’s eyes are glistening with tears, his hands shaking and lips trembling. “You were my best friend, Zayn, and I needed you, and you left. I never - I couldn’t - I don’t forgive you, Zee. I love you, god help me, I love you, but I can’t forgive you. I’m too fucking broken to forgive you.”</p>
<p>Zayn doesn’t cry, they all know it. He didn’t cry when they got sent home, he didn’t cry when he left, and he didn’t cry when they all did, collapsing under the pressure. Zayn Malik doesn’t cry.</p>
<p>It seems, in the wake of such unconventional things like the end of the world, even facts are breakable. And so in their house in the middle of nowhere, sunlight streaming in through the windows and smoke filling the air as the blunt on the carpet finally burns out, Zayn cries.</p>
<p>His horrible, breathless sobs fill the air, and Harry waits for Louis to apologize. He waits for Liam to kiss Zayn quiet. He waits for Niall to burst into tears and cry just as hard.</p>
<p>Instead, he finds his own eyes welling up. He squeezes them shut in a vain effort to keep them from overflowing, biting his lip and listening to the sound of the real end of the world.</p>
<p>They will never be okay. Things will never be okay again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>how would i</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>even breathe without</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It wasn’t supposed to be this way. This was never supposed to be their ending.</p>
<p>In another world, maybe it ends up better. Maybe Harry marries Louis and they adopt twins and tour the world side by side. Maybe Zayn never leaves Liam and they stay together, unmarried, for the rest of their lives, denying every allegation of their romance. Maybe Niall smiles at their reunions and they pretend not to notice when he leaves to hide in the bathroom, talking on the phone to a green-eyed girl who’s not four boys, but as perfect as he’ll ever get. In another world, maybe they’re happy.</p>
<p>In this one, Zayn stops sleeping. He stays in his room and refuses to eat, even as Liam waits outside with full plates for him for hours, patient and unyielding in his love. Niall cries every hour or so, bursting into tears at every random thing, and Louis uses more and more. Their house, this home they’ve made, reeks of smoke and blood, because Harry’s scars become fresh and pink and ugly in their sadness, crying tears of red.</p>
<p>Niall can’t eat. He tries, only to hurl it all up later. The next day, he finds himself unable to swallow, but still dry-heaves over the toilet for three hours in the night while Harry brushes his fingers through his shaggy blonde hair, kissing away his tears. Liam watches them from the bathroom doorway, biting his nails and glancing back towards Zayn’s closed door every few minutes, eyes glassy.</p>
<p>In another world, maybe Harry stops loving them. Maybe Harry marries Taylor instead of calling her his best friend, and Ed cries while giving his best man speech. Maybe Louis overdoses and Zayn wastes away and Niall dies and Liam crashes. Maybe they stay worlds apart, pretending they’ve always been that way.</p>
<p>In this one, Harry looks up from stroking Niall’s hair to see Louis’ perfect, shining blue eyes in the bedroom doorway, staring at him with all the intensity of a ghost.</p>
<p>In this one, Harry loves them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>i don’t know</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>who i’d be without you</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Louis meets him in the hallway. The front door is closed, locked and bolted, and Harry wants to open it but is afraid to. Instead, he reaches out his hand, and Louis tangles their fingers together, almost like they’d never let go in the first place.</p>
<p>“Never thought I’d see you again,” Louis whispers. “Like, really <em> see </em> you, y’know? I always thought… I kept waiting for you to call, but you didn’t. I almost burned your letter. I don’t know why.”</p>
<p>Harry shakes his head. He knows why.</p>
<p>Louis laughs.</p>
<p>Harry loves him.</p>
<p>“Love Niall again,” Louis says. “Love Niall again. Like, kiss him and everything. Because at least some of us should end up happy. Fuck what I want, what Zayn and Liam want, let yourself be happy. Don’t hold back because… because of me.”</p>
<p>“I want you too,” Harry answers. “I want all of you, forever and ever and ever. I want.”</p>
<p>Louis looks at him with glassy eyes. His smile is like a mirror, reflecting sadness and hopelessness and <em> you’re lying, you’re lying, you must be lying. </em></p>
<p>“You don’t… you used to, Hazza, but come on. I’m not… I’m not that boy anymore.”</p>
<p>Harry shakes his head, grasping Louis’ other hand.</p>
<p>“I never expected you to be,” he breathes. “I never want you to be. I just want you, as you are, however you are. All of you, Louis, all of us, we’re… we’re the lucky ones. The fucked-up ones, the crazy ones.”</p>
<p>He kisses Louis for the first time in five years then, on a Tuesday at twelve-oh-three a.m. in their home, the one they share with their three other puzzle pieces.</p>
<p>“We’re soulmates, Lou,” he whispers as he pulls away, breathing hard. Louis gasps against him, dropping his head onto Harry’s shoulder, and Harry traces the truth into his back.</p>
<p>
  <em> I love you. </em>
</p>
<p>“I love you,” he says aloud. “I’m so tired. I’m so tired of hiding that, Lou, I love you. We love each other, we’re soulmates, we’re impossible, all of us, we’re stupid and soulmates and -”</p>
<p>Louis laughs wetly, lifting his head to kiss Harry again, harder this time, longer this time.</p>
<p>“Just - just promise me one thing, okay, Hazza?” He says, smiling. Harry nods.</p>
<p>“Promise me you’ll go on kissing Niall too,” Louis says. “Promise me you’ll go on loving all of us. We’ll be it. We’ll be The End.”</p>
<p>Harry presses Louis’ head against his chest, holding him as close as he dares. Closing his eyes, he whispers, “I promise we’ll make it.”</p>
<p>In his head, he adds, <em> I promise I’ll still love you when we don’t. </em><br/><br/></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> we are what we remember. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> - Benjamin Alire Sáenz (The Inexplicable Logic of My Life) </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>please don't kill me &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Niall</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>the truth is out, i realize,<br/>that without you here, life is just a lie.<br/>this is not the end, this is not the end;<br/>we can make it, you know it, you know -<br/>you and me got a whole lot of history.<br/>so don’t let it go, we can make some more.<br/>baby, don’t you know, baby, don’t you know?<br/>we can live forever…</p><p>- One Direction (History)</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>lyrics taken from "Dynasty" by MIIA</p><p>PLAYLIST: common: 2) Niall</p><p>SONGS SUNG OR "WRITTEN" OR REFERENCED IN THIS CHAPTER:<br/>Perfect For Me (Justin Timberlake)<br/>(by the way, songs not mentioned here should be explicitly noted in the story, if they're not just copy and paste the lyrics, okay?)</p><p>enjoy :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> [they] know i love [them]. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> i know [they] love me. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> that is never the question. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> the question is always how we’ll deal with it. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> - David Levithan (Another Day) </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>some days</b>
</p><p>
  <b>it’s hard to see</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Niall’s always thought of the five of them as something otherworldly. Not exactly magical, not exactly alien, just different. Just special. A something that everybody looks for, stares at; the kind of something that most people spend years searching for and never find, forgetting that fate has her own plans.</p><p>Louis and Harry have been kissing him for a week. Only behind closed doors, or when Zayn and Liam are out, and they don’t say a word about it otherwise. They know all too well what the consequences are for freedom.</p><p>There is a price, Niall has found, for love. It’s not something he can explain, but it is something he’s paid, over and over and over in the name of the four boys he shares a star with. They are the ones he always returns to, and he’ll spend every penny he has and then some if it means he winds up next to them at the end of the day.</p><p>Now, he thinks that maybe secrecy is even more dangerous than before. Before, there were other people to catch them. Before, there were escape routes to follow. Before, there were choices.</p><p>There’s nothing he can choose now. He tells himself he can leave whenever he wants, that his friends will put him back together, but there’s nothing left for him if he ever leaves here. He made his choice a long time ago, and while it was probably the wrong one, there’s no going back now.</p><p>He can’t say he regrets it. Distantly, Niall understands that it would’ve been simpler for him to fall for a green-eyed girl who made him laugh. It would’ve been easier to live in the silence. It would’ve been smarter to give all his love to a single person, and to forget these four boys ever existed.</p><p>As it is, Niall chose to love them. He could’ve run, he could’ve hid, he could’ve done anything but stay. That would’ve been simpler, easier, smarter.</p><p>As it is, Niall chooses to love them anyway.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>if i was a fool</b>
</p><p>
  <b>or you a thief</b>
</p><p> </p><p>The mornings are grey. There should be sunshine by now, probably, but it’s cold and grey like a storm instead. Niall wonders if that means something.</p><p>Probably not.</p><p>Anyway, they’ve all started trying to have breakfast together, which is nice. It’s hard, since Niall and Zayn don’t eat and Harry tends to lock himself in the bathroom and Louis is never sober and Liam panics whenever they don’t show up on time, but nonetheless, when they <em> are </em> all there, it’s nice.</p><p>Today, they’ve all made it. Zayn sways in his chair, pale and trembling, until finally collapsing into Liam’s side, dead asleep. Liam pets his hair worriedly, kissing his forehead whenever Zayn starts to mumble nonsense under his breath. Niall would assume it’s from dreams, but none of them really dream anymore.</p><p>At least, Niall doesn’t.</p><p>Zayn reaches out for Liam in his sleep. Niall used to think it was cute, but now it’s just sad, with Zayn’s fingers fisted in Liam’s sweater as his eyes squeeze tighter shut. Liam holds on to him even as Zayn’s grip becomes painful, making Liam wince and hold his breath.</p><p>Under the table, Louis takes Niall’s hand. Niall doesn’t look at him, because that would make it real.</p><p>Instead, he looks over at Harry’s bandaged arms on the table and pretends they’re all ten years ago, young and innocent and loveless. He tries to remember that they’ve changed, that they’re different people now. He reminds himself, gently, that they are relearning each other, as slowly and as intimately as they can.</p><p>Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Louis light up a blunt and bring it to his lips.</p><p>Niall closes his eyes.</p><p>It’s fine. They’re fine.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>made it through the maze</b>
</p><p>
  <b>to find my one in a million</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes, Niall thinks nothing is an accident. Not the way Zayn left, not the way Louis hated him, not the way Liam cried. Not the way Harry looks at him now, like he misses him the most, even when he’s back here in their arms like <em> Spaces </em>was never even written.</p><p>Liam carried Zayn up to bed two hours ago. Since then, he and Louis have been out for groceries, and Harry has been standing in Zayn’s doorway, watching him sleep.</p><p>Finally, the silence becomes overwhelming. Niall reaches for Harry’s hand, revelling in the way Harry kisses him hello and pretending it won’t one day mean goodbye.</p><p>“He’s fine,” Niall says. “We’re all fine, you know?”</p><p>Harry shrugs. Niall knows he doesn’t believe him.</p><p>To be honest, Niall barely believes himself these days.</p><p>Sighing, he brushes his thumb across the back of Harry’s hand. With his other hand, he traces the scars on Harry’s wrist, trying not to apologize every time Harry winces.</p><p>“Why do you do that?” He asks. “I thought we were all trying not to hurt anymore.”</p><p>Harry shrugs. Niall wonders when they all became so willingly quiet.</p><p>“Dunno,” Harry mutters. “Helps, I guess. I love you.”</p><p>Niall hums. It’s a nicety, an out, but Niall doesn’t want to avoid this anymore. He lifts Harry’s hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to it, and then does his best to kiss every scar too.</p><p>Harry keeps his eyes carefully trained on Zayn. Still, he shivers every time Niall’s lips touch his skin, and Niall thinks they may be getting somewhere.</p><p>“Stop,” Harry rasps. “Stop. Let go.”</p><p>“Am I hurting you?” Niall asks. Harry shakes his head, eyes shining with tears.</p><p>“No. Just - let go, Nialler. Let go, please.”</p><p>Niall stares at him. It’s been so long since they were pretty young things who thought the world was built on love.</p><p><em> Oh well, </em> Niall thinks. <em> That world is ending now. </em></p><p>“No,” he says. Harry raises his eyes to Niall, anger simmering in them beneath the sadness like a dormant volcano, but it only makes Niall smile.</p><p>“No,” he says again. “I’m gonna hold on to you forever.”</p><p>Harry rolls his eyes, turning back to Zayn. He says nothing else, and he probably thinks Niall’s crazy, but he hasn’t let go of his hand, so Niall figures it’s still a win.</p><p><em> I’m gonna hold on to you forever, </em> he says in his head, over and over. <em> I’m gonna hold on to you for longer, this time. </em></p><p>It’s an old, empty promise. Still, he continues to repeat it until the words are slurring together and he can no longer help his mind wandering, because he guesses he means it more, now.</p><p>Like an anthem, in his head -</p><p>
  <em> I </em>
</p><p>
  <em> WILL </em>
</p><p>
  <em> NOT </em>
</p><p>
  <em> LET </em>
</p><p>
  <em> GO. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>and now you’re just a page</b>
</p><p>
  <b>torn from the story I’m building</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Some days are better than others. Some days nobody cries, and that’s forward movement for them all. That said, there are no <em> good </em> days.</p><p>They lose track of each other. In the wake of all their tragedy, they find themselves separated by walls and air alike, so sometimes days go by before Niall sees one of them again.</p><p>It’s hard not to feel so terribly, completely alone.</p><p>Liam, like Zayn, spends most of his days in his room. Today, he’s sprawled out on the big white bed like a starfish, staring up at the ceiling when Niall finds him.</p><p>Liam’s room is cold. Summer will be here soon, if the calendar in Niall’s head is screwed in right, and yet Liam’s room feels like winter has just blown in. Zayn’s drawings are everywhere, and Harry’s ponytail hangers litter the floor. The harder Niall looks, the more of all of them he finds, with comic books stacked by the door and Louis’ denim jackets crumpled on the corner of the bed by Liam’s feet. Niall’s guitar picks are in a precarious pile on Liam’s bedside table, and Isak Danielson’s <em> Hold My Hand </em> is playing on repeat from the record player in the corner. Distantly, Niall wonders how many record players they have now.</p><p>The lights are dim. All the windows are closed, the blinds drawn and curtains shut, and only Liam’s bedside lamp is on, washing the room in shadow and purple. Liam’s got those rainbow colored light bulbs all over his room for some reason - Niall thinks it probably doesn’t mean anything, but Harry says it’s for them. Because the five of them are a rainbow, and so whenever Liam wants to think about one of them, he turns on the lights and lets himself be drowned in their hue.</p><p>Usually he only has the lamp on, purple spilling out over everything. Niall won’t admit that he’s spent long, sleepless nights wondering who purple is.</p><p>“Close the door, would ya, Nialler?” Liam rasps from the bed. “It’s too cold.”</p><p>Niall doesn’t touch the door, wandering over to Liam’s bed and gently nudging him over so he can lie down beside him. He threads their fingers together as if that’s normal, as if that’s something friends do.</p><p>
  <em> “Brothers”, my ass. </em>
</p><p>“Where’s Zee?” Liam asks. Niall shrugs, because he doesn’t know. Hopefully sleeping. Probably not. “Why’re you here?”</p><p>Niall shrugs again. He keeps his eyes carefully trained on Liam’s arrow tattoos, because despite what he always says, Niall knows it’s the one tattoo Liam has never regretted.</p><p>Ink is something they’ve all learned to take comfort in. Though Niall has none on his body, he finds his eyes wandering to the others’ inked skin more often than not, smiling as he remembers what they mean.</p><p>“I love you,” he tells Liam, because they all need to hear it sometimes. Liam doesn’t answer, his own eyes caught on another one of his tattoos, and Niall swallows, pretending not to know which one.</p><p>
  <em> we are the quiet ones. </em>
</p><p>That’s the thing about tattoos. They’re honest and expressive and personal, an intimate secret between skin and mind. And they’re careful, permanent foreshadowing of the future, which is exactly why Niall has never dared to entertain the idea that any of them will end up with him.</p><p>They love him, sure. They always have. But that doesn’t matter, not really, because love is about choices. And in the end, there’s only ever been one way this ends -</p><p>Harry and Louis.</p><p>Zayn and Liam.</p><p>Niall.</p><p>That’s the way it’s always been and that’s the way it always will be. It doesn’t matter that Harry and Louis like to kiss him, it doesn’t matter that Harry and Zayn have this weird <em> thing </em> that none of them can touch, it doesn't matter that they love Niall’s smile or his laugh or his voice, because in the end, that’s all they love.</p><p>They don’t want his sadness. They don’t want his fear. They don’t want his worst.</p><p>They want his sunshine. They want his warmth. They want his blue skies, but they’ll never want his thunderstorms. When it comes down to it, they’ll only ever really love half of Niall, and that’s not enough.</p><p>Still, he loves all of them. Because they are his soulmates, regardless of whether he is theirs, and he doesn’t mind following them for eternity if it means he gets even a fraction of their love, however small.</p><p>He’ll play the best friend. He’ll play the fool. He’ll play the middle.</p><p>He doesn’t mind.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>and all i gave you is gone</b>
</p><p>
  <b>tumbled like it was stone</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Niall wonders what the elephant’s name is.</p><p>Zayn carries it around everywhere, never mentioning its name, and it bothers Niall for reasons he doesn’t think could possibly explain. Sometimes when he hasn’t slept in a few days, Zayn will rub its ears and smile at it stupidly, and every once in awhile Niall can hear him whispering to it.</p><p>It’s sad, really, but also happy. It’s proof that they’re not incapable of smiling anymore.</p><p>Now, though, Zayn’s brow is furrowed as he stares into the elephant’s blank black eyes, as if there’s an entire other world in there that isn’t so fucked up. Louis is smoking in the corner, and Liam’s locked in his room, yellow and blue and purple light leaking out from under his door. Niall hasn’t seen Harry in three days.</p><p>There’s this strange, tense limbo they’ve entered, one where they touch all the time but don’t talk. The five of them together, tangled up in each other with no explanation, skin on skin the only language they all still know how to speak.</p><p>Niall has the sudden, inexplicable urge to blast sad music from every record player in the house at once and just let this home <em> shake </em> with all their pain.</p><p>Instead, he watches Zayn and Louis glance at each other from across the room, over and over and always missing each other. Their fights are only ever loud and explosive or silent and careful, but either way Niall hates them. The only way they all work is if they all love each other, and so long as Zayn and Louis are caught up in each other’s bitterness like this, nothing is going to work.</p><p>At least Zayn looks like he’s been sleeping. Not well, but better, with the black bags a little less pronounced now. In his lap, the elephant smiles dumbly, and it crosses Niall’s mind that maybe he hates the elephant because the elephant is just like him.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>thought we built a dynasty</b>
</p><p>
  <b>that heaven couldn’t shake</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Louis has taken to sleeping in Harry’s bed, and Niall joins them more often than not, lonely in the empty universe that is his own bedroom.</p><p>The problem is, he can’t sleep. He knows he could get up if he wanted and he wouldn’t be alone; he can hear Zayn shuffling around downstairs. But Harry’s snoring in his ear and Louis is mumbling in his sleep, and Niall can’t bring himself to move, tangled up in them.</p><p>He can hear the faint notes of a song from the first floor record player. It sounds like Taylor - something old, <em> Untouchable </em>maybe. They all miss her, really, but it’s Zayn and Harry who miss her the most, and so Niall shoves down all the aching he has for the blue-eyed beauty and replaces it with aching for Ed instead.</p><p>Niall’s lost a lot of people. He hates it, but he’ll survive. His boys, though… they’re a question mark on his life sentence. He’s not exactly sure what’ll happen to him when they leave, but he’s betting his heart won’t be beating by the end of it.</p><p>That’s why being with Harry and Louis now, as quiet and as casual as it is, is so terrifying. Because it doesn’t feel <em> wrong. </em> It feels right, more right than anything else he’s ever had, and that’s the worst thing about it, really - the fact that they feel so right together, the three of them, but something is always missing.</p><p>Still, Niall knows better than to try and call those two ghosts by their names. He’ll lose them anyway, in the end.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>thought we built a dynasty</b>
</p><p>
  <b>like nothing ever made</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes Niall thinks the world revolves around them.</p><p>It doesn’t, not really. He knows that. But now, in the living room of this dusty house in the middle of nowhere, the record player blasting <em> Someday </em>by Michael Bublé and Meghan Trainor, it feels like the world is theirs. Like their love sustains it, breathes life into its flowers; it’s as if they hold the cracks together. When they’re okay, the world is okay. And when they’re broken, the world is broken too.</p><p>Harry is laughing, head thrown back and curls bouncing wildly as he holds tightly to Louis, spinning around and around and around like the record on the player. Louis is grinning, looking up at Harry with those shining eyes of his, and Liam is singing along from the corner, knees pulled to his chest and a smile on his face.</p><p>Niall, curled beside Zayn on the couch, watches them all with a smile. There’s pain in loving them, sure, but there’s also moments like this, moments when everything seems like it just might turn out alright.</p><p>Still, though, the pain always seems to leak into these moments and make them just a little bit sadder. Like now, when Niall turns to grin at Zayn only to be greeted by sunken cheeks and bloodshot eyes, all framed by a slight frown. Instantly, Niall’s heart falls to his feet, but he manages to pick it back up to his knees, reaching for Zayn’s hand.</p><p>“Zaynie! You hungry? I’m about ready for lunch myself.”</p><p>That’s a lie. Niall hates eating as much as Zayn does. But Zayn turns to him with fond eyes, lips stretching into a smile, so Niall counts it as a win.</p><p>“Nah,” Zayn says, but his eyes flicker the way they always do when he’s lying. “But I can make you something if you want?”</p><p>Niall shakes his head, smile fading against the sound of Harry’s sharp laughter and Louis’ raspy voice. He wonders - if ten years ago he’d known where his life would end up, would he still have stepped up on that stage?</p><p>“No, Zaynie,” he says. “I mean, how long’s it been since you last ate?”</p><p>Zayn’s cheeks color in shame, but he offers only a shrug in response. Niall, of course, knows exactly what that means.</p><p>He sighs. Tugging Zayn up by the hand, he pulls him past the others and into the kitchen, smiling when he sees that Zayn’s brought the elephant with him, holding it loosely by the ear. Liam wanders in not long after, pressing himself to Zayn’s back and closing his arms around his waist as Niall rummages around in the fridge for something quick and small.</p><p>Liam kisses Zayn’s neck. Niall casts his eyes to the ground as he shuffles over to the counter with some leftover pasta in his hands, throwing it into the microwave and watching it spin.</p><p>“You’re beautiful, you know that?” He hears Liam whisper into Zayn’s skin. The answer is Zayn’s soft laugh, and some rustling as he twists in Liam’s arms, the elephant sitting quietly on the island next to them.</p><p>The pasta continues to spin around.</p><p>“You are,” Liam insists. “Really. So beautiful, Zayn. The beautifulest.”</p><p>Zayn snorts.</p><p>Around.</p><p>“Zee,” Liam whispers. “You’re the beautifulest person ever.”</p><p>Around.</p><p>Zayn is quiet, but when Niall chances a glance over his shoulder, he has his forehead pressed against Liam’s, their eyes closed and smiles small.</p><p>“Thanks, Leeyum,” Zayn murmurs. Niall closes his eyes, forcing himself to turn back to the microwave.</p><p>Around and around and around they go.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>thought we built a dynasty</b>
</p><p>
  <b>forever couldn’t break up</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Niall’s not sure what he’d do differently if he was sent back ten years ago. Seven years ago. Five. One. He really doesn’t know.</p><p>He’d probably tell Louis and Zayn to never ever ever touch drugs, no matter how harmless they think it is, because it will always destroy them in the end. He’d probably tell Liam to never start drinking because it never really makes the fear and sadness go away, it just drowns it out for awhile, and one day temporary fixes aren’t going to be enough. He’d probably tell Harry that he is loved a million times over, and that he’s as pure as they get and the world would be ruined if he left it. He’d probably tell all of them that he loves them, that he’s <em> in </em>love with them, and that it will never end between the five of them, not really.</p><p>He wonders what they’d tell him. What they’d change, what they’d repeat. They are a five-point star that never truly supernovas because they’re too busy relapsing back into each other, and Niall loves them with everything in him.</p><p>Even now. Even out in the middle of nowhere, in a stupid old house that none of them ever really call home. Even when he’s wandering around the endless field that is their backyard after Harry, trying desperately to find Louis in the sea of dying green.</p><p>He knows the exact moment Harry finds him. Beneath the grey, drizzling sky, Louis lies splayed out on the ground, smoke billowing from his lips. Niall watches them, the soulmates, the ones the world always thought would make it, implode.</p><p>“Again?” Harry asks, and it’s not even a cry. There are tears streaming down his cheeks, and he gasps through polluted breaths, but the word is a defeated whisper, the kind you hear right before everything ends. Niall feels his chest cave in with the weight of their sad, beautiful, tragic love.</p><p>Louis watches Harry cry with apathy. There was a time when nothing in the world could stop him from taking that boy into his arms and holding him as close as he could, from lying and telling him it would all be okay. Now, Louis just stares, eyes dead and bloodshot.</p><p>Harry crumples to the ground beside Louis, dragging him into his arms. He cradles Louis close, as if that’ll make it all better, and Niall watches as something in Louis stirs to life, his arms coming up around Harry and hugging him back. Still, as they rock back and forth, their eyes seeping bloody tears, Niall thinks that this may be it for them.</p><p><em> This is the way the world ends, </em>his mind recites, an echo of one of the poems on Zayn’s walls. T.S. Eliot, maybe, but Niall can never be sure. He closes his eyes.</p><p>
  <em> This is the way the world ends. </em>
</p><p>Everyone watches the movies. They all see the sad endings. They all see the tragedy. They all see the pain, the grief, the incurable trauma.</p><p>Thing is, everyone still thinks their own ending will be a happy one.</p><p>
  <em> This is the way the world ends, </em>
</p><p>Niall is not everyone.</p><p>
  <em> not with a bang, but with a whimper. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>the scar i can’t reverse</b>
</p><p>
  <b>when the more it heals</b>
</p><p>
  <b>the worse it hurts</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes Niall forgets how young they are. Sure, they’re all in their twenties and the world thinks they’re settling down with babies and wives, but when it comes down to it, they’re still children. They’ve always been children, scared little children, and they’ll remain that way no matter how hard they try to grow up.</p><p>Their manners are crude and unpolished, where they have them. They revert to immature tactics when angry, answering raised voices with tears and silence. Niall often wonders how they ever even survived the first war; this one, surely, will kill them.</p><p>Dinner is quiet, like the dead. The wind rattles the windows and the rain falls down in a steady beat, but no words dare shatter the endless silence. It’s fitting, somehow, Niall supposes - their love was always meant to die someday, and there are far worse places to lay themselves down in their graves than here.</p><p>Harry won’t speak to Louis, won’t look at him. In return, Louis says nothing and moves nothing, staying resolutely still beside the boy he once promised to love forever. Their love seems almost a ghost already, lost in shadows and secrets and screams. They will never be what they were before, Niall already knew that much, but now they seem ever willing to give up, too tired to continue the fight.</p><p>Zayn and Liam are resigned in their surrender, hands clasped under the table as they pretend not to notice the other is there. Zayn pushes the food around on his plate so it looks like there’s less of it, but they all know he hasn’t taken a single bite. Liam’s eyes are cloudy and dark, overwhelmed with an unspoken, unexplained grief. Tears are still drying on his cheeks, and they shine in the dim light of all the candles Harry’s lit, but Niall can’t recall ever seeing him cry today.</p><p>For his part, Niall takes slow, painful mouthfuls, stopping after only half his plate is gone. He closes his eyes when he feels it settle, pressing his hands into his thighs to keep them from checking his stomach.</p><p>He knows he’s thin enough. Logically, he knows. Bone isn’t beauty, and his ribs are showing more often than not. Still, he finds himself beside the toilet every night, sobbing wretchedly as he coughs up the last of whatever he may’ve eaten that day.</p><p>He makes it five minutes tonight. His footsteps sound like explosions against the hardwood floor as he races for the bathroom, dropping to his knees and pressing two fingers to the back of his throat, hurling into the pristine white bowl he’d just cleaned that morning. So much for that.</p><p>Soft footsteps make their way over to him, and with his eyes closed Niall traces their path. The soft hands that touch his neck and wrist are familiar, warm, and safe, such a contrast from the horrible, terrible war all around them.</p><p>He forces his eyes open, feeling the tears well up in them at the harsh light that greets him. Zayn kisses his temple, holding him even as Niall heaves into the toilet once again. They stay there for what feels like hours, the others never even attempting to check in, and Niall vomits everything into the filthy cold basin.</p><p>“Help,” he croaks, turning to Zayn with helpless eyes, and Zayn smiles, kissing away his tears.</p><p>“It’s okay,” he whispers. “You’re okay, Nialler. It’s okay.”</p><p>With one last heave, Niall stands, hating how nothing else falls from his lips. Like his heart, he thinks, his stomach must finally be empty.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>gave you every piece of me</b>
</p><p>
  <b>no wonder it’s missing</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Sleep doesn’t come easily anymore. They used to collapse into beds with exhaustion at the end of the day, sometimes together, mostly alone. Now, they give in to the black randomly, whenever and wherever, without warning and without routine. Zayn spends the nights wandering, since he doesn’t sleep much at all anymore, and sometimes Niall runs into him when his mind won’t stop buzzing and he’s given up on rest.</p><p>Sleep is the most peace they’ve ever gotten, really, so Niall supposes it’s sort of fitting that none of them can really find it anymore. Though Zayn mostly lingers outside of Liam’s room, dancing around the living room to whatever song is currently stuck in his head, Niall makes his way up and down the stairs over and over again, peeking into his boys’ bedrooms to see how they are.</p><p>Liam doesn’t sleep so much as doze off every few minutes. He always wakes with a start, like something in his dreams has been chasing him, and then looks around the room for a moment before laying a hand on the empty spot beside him, curling his fingers in a fist around the sheets. He closes his eyes, then opens them as he lies back down. The fourth time this happens, Niall watches through a crack in the doorway as he turns his bedside lamp on, basking in the purple that washes over him like tainted sunlight.</p><p>The second floor is Niall’s. He’s made his bedroom as homey as he can, pasting green glowstars on the ceiling and hanging photographs of his boys from clothespins. There’s blue everywhere, in his blankets and in his rugs and in his pillows, and soft stuffed animals are arranged in a pile in the corner, some books stacked beside them. Still, no matter how many details he adds, it never seems just right.</p><p>Harry’s bedroom is big and empty, littered with clothes and blankets. His bathroom door is always open, the light always on, and Harry always falls asleep underneath his fluffy duvet, wrapped in a worn hoodie the color of a rose. It’s too small, riding up his scarred wrists and tattooed stomach, but he looks so comfortable in it, like it’s a part of him, almost, and Niall loves him so much he can’t breathe.</p><p>Louis sleeps splayed out like a starfish. He makes no noise and he never moves, despite the soccer podcasts playing from his phone right next to his ear and the stench of cigarette smoke from the dying ones in the ashtray on his bedside table. He has Christmas lights hanging everywhere, mostly of horribly clashing colors, and soccer balls and notebooks and pencils are scattered all about his floor, creating a maze of creativity and liveliness that Niall seldom has the energy to weave through, much as he wants to. Niall spends the longest watching him, usually, because Louis is an enigma that Niall’s got all figured out, and he’s fascinating.</p><p>Zayn’s room is exactly as Niall would picture it. Never the right temperature, a mess of art supplies that all look the same to Niall but are apparently wildly distinctive to Zayn, and covered in artwork of the five of them, always depicted as far more beautiful than they actually are. On the nights Zayn doesn’t wander, he sits criss-cross on his bed in the midst of superhero sheets and half-finished comic books, something emitting softly from the record player in the corner - usually Taylor, sometimes Perrie’s band. He works without pause, drawing Liam after Liam after Liam  after Liam and dropping them all to the floor as soon as he’s done, unintentionally turning his floor into a mural of love for his greatest muse. Watching him makes Niall the saddest for reasons he can never really explain.</p><p>Tonight, Niall’s climbed up and down the stairs five times, and he finally stops at Louis’ door, staring for only a moment before making his way to the bed and curling up beside Louis, using his chest as a pillow. He listens to Louis’ steady heartbeat and closes his eyes, trying his best to convince himself they’re not all really dead.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>don’t know how to be so close</b>
</p><p>
  <b>to someone so distant</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Niall is the sunshine. Niall is the happiness. Niall is the hope.</p><p>To a certain extent, this is true. Come what may, Niall has always believed in their five point star. Not a second goes by that he doesn’t love them, nor a second that he doesn’t believe they love him the same. He remains, to this day, the one that keeps them together.</p><p>That said, his failures still hang over him like a thundercloud. Zayn leaving was never his fault, was never any of theirs, and they know that. Deep down, they know that. Still, Niall knows more certainly with every passing day that if Zayn had stayed, they would have made it.</p><p>Every interview made it worse. Every time the question came up, something in them broke further, and now Niall spends his time finding their pieces and fitting them back together. He’s not sure if you’re supposed to live in a puzzle, but he does, and as the days go by Niall watches them lose each other, helpless against their sadness.</p><p>Harry won’t speak to Louis. They don’t kiss Niall much anymore, and he’s never sure if it’s because they’ve forgotten how to or because they’ve forgotten they want to. Though Niall supposes in the end it doesn’t really matter.</p><p>He does his best to get them to talk. That’s his job, that’s his place, that’s his purpose. He’s the fool, the middle, the fifth wheel, and he lets himself be burned over and over again by them in his effort to keep them mostly in one piece.</p><p>They won’t survive if this breaks again. They pretend they will, they probably even think they will, but Niall knows better. If the five of them finally supernova, the universe will collapse into ruin.</p><p>But Niall doesn’t know balance very well. He pushes too much or not enough, and so Harry snaps from his stony silence just long enough to shout truths that shatter Niall into a thousand tiny pieces.</p><p>Liam is the one who finds him. Against Louis’ bedroom door, knees pulled to his chest, Niall lets the tears run down his cheeks as he pulls shard after shard from the ground around him, putting his fragile glass self back together. In silence, he and Liam sit, staring at the wall and pretending things are okay.</p><p>“You didn’t deserve that,” Liam finally says, all in one breath. “You never deserved us, Niall.”</p><p>His hand finds Niall’s in the wreckage, and Niall knows what he means -</p><p>
  <em> You don’t deserve our shit. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You don’t deserve our pain. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You don’t deserve our sadness. </em>
</p><p>He knows, truly, what Liam means. But in the end, it doesn’t matter.</p><p>Niall is the fool. Niall is the middle. Niall is the fifth wheel.</p><p>Niall is the extra.</p><p>He closes his eyes.</p><p>“You never deserved us,” Liam says again. “I’m sorry.”</p><p><em> You’ll never deserve us, </em> Niall hears. <em> You should be sorry. </em></p><p><em> I am, </em> he answers, letting it echo around his empty brain. <em> I’m always sorry. </em></p><p>He shrugs. Aloud, he says, “I don’t care. I want you anyway.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>and all i gave you is gone</b>
</p><p>
  <b>tumbled like it was stone</b>
</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry.”</p><p>Niall looks up at Harry beside him, who’s holding his hand like he didn’t just shatter him days ago. It hits Niall, suddenly, that he loves this boy, and that he’ll probably always love this boy, no matter where they all wind up in the end.</p><p>He tries for a smile. It only half-works.</p><p>“It’s okay.”</p><p>Harry shakes his head. He’s smiling, but he looks like he’s about to cry.</p><p>“It’s not. Please don’t say it is. It’s not.”</p><p>Niall shrugs. He’s used to it, is what he means. He’s not sure he’s been a whole person since ten years ago, but he’s okay with that. He’s happier this way, he thinks, even if he does cry more.</p><p>“Okay. Will you come see Lou with me?”</p><p>Harry nods, stumbling as he stands up and crashing into Niall. His eyes are shining as he looks down at him, touching his cheek with gentle fingers. He opens his mouth, then closes it again, before finally leaning down to peck Niall on the lips.</p><p>“I’m happy you’re here,” he says. Niall doesn’t say anything, but he has the feeling Harry hears his answer anyway.</p><p>Soulmates are like that.</p><p>Louis’ door is open. He’s quiet, staring at the ceiling with Sasha Sloan on full blast from the record player, but there’s no blunt in his hands. His eyes are tired, but they shine the same blue they’ve always been, with no red rims or black bags. He looks better, but worse at the same time, and Niall wants to kiss him so badly.</p><p>Harry does it for him. Niall watches them from the doorway as they wrap themselves up in each other, with their hands tangled and foreheads pressed together. They fit together just as well as they did a decade ago, because they always seemed to change together. Niall used to hate them for it before he realized he could never hate them for anything.</p><p>“You’re sober,” Harry murmurs, blinking fast as he meets Louis’ eyes. “You smell like you.”</p><p>A ghost of a smile flits across Louis’ face. He kisses Harry once, twice, three times, then shrugs, squeezing Harry’s hand.</p><p>“For now,” he says. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>Niall can hear Harry’s fragile hope crack and break into a million pieces, but he says nothing, letting them trade kisses and glances and whispers.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Louis rasps again. “Please don’t leave me. I’m sorry. I love you. I love you so much. I’m sorry. Don’t leave me. I love you too much to survive you leaving me.”</p><p>It’s too honest. It’s much, much too honest.</p><p>“I know,” Harry murmurs, pulling Louis to his chest and letting him curl up there, cradling his head and kissing his temple. “I know, boo.”</p><p>Louis doesn’t cry. His eyes are too dry for that, but he shakes and sobs and squeezes his eyes shut like if they’re closed everything will just go away, and Niall is reminded once again, with a sudden clarity, that they really are all just children, when it comes down to it.</p><p>“I love you too,” Harry says eventually, soft against Louis’ ear as if it’s a secret. “You know I love you too.”</p><p>Louis jerks his head in some sort of nod, sobs quieting, and Niall tears his eyes from them, unable to stand the pain of seeing them be so perfectly <em> together </em> for one moment longer.</p><p>“I love you too, by the way,” he says to his shoes, shrugging. “We all love you. Y’know. If that matters.”</p><p>Their answer will be bullshit, just like everything else with them, probably. But it doesn’t really matter anyway.</p><p>Niall doesn’t stay long enough to hear it.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>thought we built a dynasty</b>
</p><p>
  <b>that heaven couldn’t shake</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Stars always supernova, in the end. There’s nothing Niall can do to keep them from imploding on themselves eventually, he knows that. He just thought he’d have longer.</p><p>It happens on a Wednesday. They’re dancing for no reason to some song Niall can’t remember all the words to in the living room, and for a moment - for a single fatal, soul-shattering moment - Harry forgets they’re not alone.</p><p>He kisses Louis, hard and quick, and Niall laughs because he doesn’t realize anyone else is watching. Harry pulls away from Louis with a grin, pulling Niall against him too and pressing their lips together.</p><p>It’s like one of those stupid dramatic movies Harry loves so much. The sound of glass shattering rings in their ears along with their heartbeats and Niall looks up just in time to Zayn’s face crumble like a castle into ruin.</p><p>For what feels like an eternity, there is only silence. They stand there staring at each other - Louis, Harry, and Niall intertwined, Zayn and Liam alone. Liam is rocking back and forth on the couch, hands fisted in his hair and on the verge of another panic attack, and Zayn just stands still like he’s been frozen into ice, too cold in his shock and loneliness to move.</p><p>And then, suddenly, the world slams back into motion.</p><p>A sob ribs from Zayn’s lips like a scream, and he backs away from them as Harry reaches out, hands over his mouth.</p><p>“I’m happy for you,” he blubbers. “Really, I’m. So, s-so hap-py for you, I -”</p><p>Niall can see it in his eyes, the exact moment it sinks in. Zayn moves like lightning towards the front door, throwing it open and stumbling down the steps as they all chase after him.</p><p>He’s almost halfway to his abandoned car at the edge of the woods when Liam suddenly bursts off the steps and catches him by the wrist, pulling him back. His eyes are wide and terrified and sad, and in Niall’s mind the scene flashes black and white for a second, caught back in that hotel room where the world ended the first time.</p><p>Zayn is fighting Liam, trying to pull away, and their voices are rising and scrambling over each other in one chaotic mess of love and bitterness.</p><p>“Why are we even here, Liam?”</p><p>“Because we -”</p><p>“We’re never gonna -”</p><p>“Just shut up -”</p><p>Niall’s never seen their star implode, not fully. But here, now, he watches it burst with seven words from Liam’s lips.</p><p>“<em>You can’t fucking leave me again, Zayn!</em>”</p><p>The world seems to stop. For a single, heartbreaking moment, the world stops spinning, Zayn’s tears still on his cheeks and lips parted around some bullshit he’ll never say now. He and Liam stare at each other, lost in the last sentence of their story and torn between two endings.</p><p>Liam moves first, shaking his head and dropping Zayn’s wrists.</p><p>“You can’t fucking leave me again, Zee,” he rasps. “We won’t survive it if you - I couldn’t - Zayn, I -”</p><p>He lifts his eyes with slow, sincere intention, shrugging his shoulders. Zayn’s chest rises and falls as if these breaths are the last he’ll ever take, his eyes caught on Liam’s in the midst of their raging storm.</p><p>“Zayn,” Liam whispers. “I love you.”</p><p>And just like that, they relapse.</p><p>Zayn surges forward, wrapping his arms around Liam’s neck and kissing him for the first time in nearly six years. Liam’s eyes squeeze tightly shut but the tears slip past anyway as he fists his fingers in Zayn’s shirt and hair. Even as they pull away from each other’s lips, they stay pressed together, whispering to each other and laughing.</p><p>Harry moves, finally, only to take Niall’s hand. Niall tears his eyes from Zayn and Liam to see Harry’s fingers close around Louis’, tired bone and inky skin fitting together like puzzle pieces are meant to.</p><p>Niall closes his eyes. He lets go of Harry’s hand, mind foggy with grey memories of matching tattoos that stick out brightly in purple and orange and red and green, blue and yellow always missing. Unneeded, unwanted, unloved. Unnoticed.</p><p>Soulmates do exist, Niall knows that much. He’s just so tired of pretending he has any.</p><p>Opening his eyes, he allows himself one more moment to watch them - his boys, his loves, his life. He commits them to memory, to heart, in all their beautiful, tragic glory, then turns and walks back inside.</p><p>This is the beginning of the end.<br/><br/><br/></p><p>
  <em> there were different kinds of silences between us. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> sometimes the silence meant that we knew each other so well that we didn’t need words. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> sometimes the silence meant that we were mad at each other. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> and sometimes the silence meant that we didn’t know each other at all. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> - Benjamin Alire Sáenz (The Inexplicable Logic of My Life) </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>thought we built a dynasty</b>
</p><p>
  <b>like nothing ever made</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Like every ending, theirs takes time.</p><p>Niall tells himself he’ll leave every night. He stays up late staring at the door and listens to Ed’s saddest songs on repeat on the record player, because he can never quite bring himself to do it. He has no idea where his keys are. He hasn’t even packed a bag.</p><p>Tonight, they all gather together in the living room after dinner. The record player is still and quiet, clearing the air for Niall to strum something on his guitar. He’s pretty sure only Harry knows the song he’s playing, Conan Gray’s <em> Heather, </em> but he hopes none of them know what it means to him.</p><p>Zayn and Liam seem to have this soft, golden glow around them. They always do, since they finally got their shit together out in the yard that day, and now they’re always wrapped up in each other like not touching will kill them.</p><p>They were all like that, once upon a time, but that’s all over now. No matter how many times Louis and Harry kiss him, no matter how many times Liam hugs him, no matter how many times Zayn holds his hand, they will never be close enough. They will never need him the same way they need each other, and Niall’s long since made peace with that fact.</p><p>That said, it isn’t any easier now than it was the first day he felt it. It’s never been easy.</p><p>“I love you,” he whispers, continuing to play <em> Heather </em> long after it should’ve been over. “I love you all.”</p><p>Harry hums, knocking his feet together as he plays with his and Louis’ hands, tangled together in between them. Louis fell asleep a little while ago, his head on Harry’s shoulder, and Niall, like the rest of them, pretends not to notice the cigarette burning out in his hand.</p><p>Zayn, his head on Liam’s chest, smiles.</p><p>“We love you too, Ni,” he says. Liam smiles down at him, and their eyes shine as they stare into each other’s, sharing a kiss. Niall swallows down the bitterness in his throat, shrugging as he looks back down at his guitar.</p><p>“Yeah, I know,” he lies. “Just felt like sayin’ it.”</p><p>Zayn hums in answer. He and Liam are too blinded by each other to notice Niall, and Harry and Louis aren’t much better, all soft snores and meaningless mumbles.</p><p>Niall starts to sing <em> Heather </em>again, quieter this time. He changes the pronouns as he pleases, playing around with the lyrics, and somewhere deep down he hopes they’ll remember this when it all finally shatters.</p><p>He loves them. They love him. He knows this.</p><p>It is never enough.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>thought we built a dynasty</b>
</p><p>
  <b>forever couldn’t break up</b>
</p><p> </p><p>The days pass slowly, and without distinction. Time seems almost meaningless now, what with the world ending and all. Niall spends as much of it as he can with his boys, knowing that they’re running on borrowed time.</p><p>Zayn and Liam are curled together in Zayn’s room, lost to dreams of better days. Though Niall knows this is just the peak, the single point of happiness before they trip and stumble downhill to their deaths, in the moment he can almost believe this is how they’ll always feel.</p><p>Taylor’s playing on the record player again, <em> Fifteen </em> this time. It’s mostly her they listen to these days, because Harry always misses her and it’s not like the rest of them are used to her not being around.</p><p>The carpet is soft under Niall’s fingers. He smiles as he traces the spots on the ceiling with his eyes, Harry and Louis quiet beside him. Their hands are tangled together, and this time, when Harry takes Niall’s hand in his, Niall doesn’t let go.</p><p>Small mercies, he thinks, are allowed. If he wants to hold Harry’s hand, he’ll hold Harry’s hand goddamnit, because the five of them have already lost so many years not being able to touch each other.</p><p>“And all we wanted was to be wanted,” Harry mumbles, singing clumsily along to the record. “Wish we could go back and tell ourselves what we know now…”</p><p>Niall closes his eyes, trying to drown out everything with Harry’s voice. He turns on his side, facing Harry now, and keeps holding on to Harry’s hand, hoping that somehow they can always stay this way.</p><p>Centuries pass before soft lips press themselves to his forehead. A moment later, they leave, and Niall waits two moments more before opening his eyes. There, beside him, Harry is staring into Louis’ eyes, a wry smile on his face.</p><p>“Back then I thought I was gonna marry you one day,” he murmurs, more speaking than singing, and Louis smiles. It’s a sad, pitiful thing, but still just as beautiful as it was back then.</p><p>Niall closes his eyes again, shuffling closer. The song plays on without their accompaniment, but Harry and Louis stay stuck in that moment, staring at each other like it’ll fix everything. Harry’s hand, wrapped in Niall’s, suddenly feels cold.</p><p>“When I was sixteen,” Niall whispers, almost hoping they don’t hear him, “you always told me you loved me, and I always believed you…”</p><p>There’s a rustling sound beside him, and Niall opens his eyes into Louis’, all wide and blue and beautiful.</p><p>“I love you,” he says, grinning, and Harry squeezes Niall’s hand, eyes twinkling. “I love you, Niall.”</p><p>Niall blushes, his heart thumping in his chest. With a nod, he answers softly -</p><p>“I believe you.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>it all fell down</b>
</p><p>
  <b>it all fell down</b>
</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t think about it much, his brain too clouded with lyrics and memories, but it occurs to Niall sometimes that they should probably all be in a hospital instead of a house.</p><p>Two of them have eating disorders, another two are suicidal, and the last one of them is addicted to drugs. That probably says a lot about them, really, but somehow Niall can’t bring himself to care too much. He’s got his boys, and that’s all that really matters - they’ll all be dead in a few years anyway, probably. Maybe even a few months. Because, y’know. The world is ending.</p><p>Harry and Louis went out somewhere a few hours ago. Maybe to get groceries; Niall wasn’t really listening when they told him. Harry’s hands were tangled in his, Louis was pressed against Niall’s chest, and in the midst of quick kisses and little smiles, they might’ve mentioned where they were going. Niall’s reminded of that one Walt Whitman quote - <em> we were together. I forget the rest. </em></p><p>That’s how it always feels, these days. Sure, he spends most nights in front of the door, waiting to leave, but in the good moments, the really <em> good </em> moments, it feels like they could last forever.</p><p>Now, sitting at the table across from Zayn and Liam, Niall sways to Ed Sheeran’s voice emanating from the record player and reminds himself -</p><p>
  <em> WE ARE ALIVE. </em>
</p><p>It’s a scream in his head, a plea for something other than mundane loneliness. It’s louder when he closes his eyes, so he strives to keep them open, watching Zayn scoop slow, painful spoonfuls of cereal into his mouth. Beneath the table, Liam is holding his hand.</p><p>Sometimes, when it’s really late at night and the wind is howling like a childless mother, Niall looks through his old pictures of all of them and asks himself all these questions. They rarely make sense and he never knows the answers, but he can’t sleep unless he thinks about each of them five times over.</p><p>It’s a problem, probably, but whatever. It’s the least of his.</p><p>Across the table, Zayn swallows the last of the cereal. Liam kisses him, cradling his face in his shaking hands, and Niall turns his eyes to his fingers on the table, tapping along to the beat of Ed Sheeran’s <em> Photograph. </em></p><p>Breathing in deep, then out again slow, he tells himself it doesn’t matter. He may be alone now, but in an hour or so they’ll all be together again and it won’t feel so bad. In an hour or so, it’ll be one of those really <em> good </em> moments again, the ones that last forever.</p><p><em> We were together, </em> he thinks again, letting it echo around his crowded mind. <em> I forget the rest. </em></p><p>One last time, a little slower -</p><p>
  <em> We are together. I’ll forget the rest. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>it all fell</b>
</p><p>
  <b>it all fell down</b>
</p><p>
  <b>it all fell down</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Back when they were famous, Niall remembers laughing at the theories that would pop up after every interview. An accidental brush of a hands, a bored twiddle of the thumbs, a stuttered reiteration of a lyric, and the fans would go wild. Niall’s never been quite sure why - he wonders if it ever crossed the fans’ minds that the harder they looked, the harder the boys tried to hide it.</p><p>There were brave days, of course. Days they changed lyrics on purpose instead of as a joke or by mistake. Days they wrote each other’s names into songs only to replace them in editing. Days they answered fan’s inquiries and prompts like it wouldn’t kill them later.</p><p>Niall remembers late night confessions and kisses, the clothes shared and jewelry gifted. He’ll remind himself of the good times as he cards through the photos he can’t fit on his walls, smiling as he runs his fingers over his boys’ grinning young faces. The bad times he glosses over, pretending they don’t matter anymore.</p><p>He still has some of the lyrics they wrote back then. Songs the fans have never even guessed at, because they were too focused on the <em> 18’s </em> and <em> You &amp; I’s </em> to notice the <em> Olivia’s. </em></p><p>Olivia, Zayn’s female persona. They may’ve told the world her name was Veronica, but lies are easy to tell, especially when everyone believes you. And so nobody batted an eyelash at a song called <em> Olivia, </em> because it must be to another girlfriend, another flame. Who would guess it was to their ex-bandmate, the one they seemingly hadn’t spoken to in months?</p><p>Olivia, their love. Olivia, their life. Olivia, their light.</p><p>Zayn. Their love, their life, their light.</p><p>Theirs.</p><p>It’s these kinds of thoughts that keep Niall up at night long after the others have fallen to blackness and dreams. He untangles himself from Harry and Louis, looking back for only a moment to watch them fill his space with each other, and wanders downstairs from Harry’s bedroom to his own.</p><p>There, he digs through photos and hoodies to find a crumpled notebook. Picking up a pen from the pile on his bedside table, he smoothes out the paper as best he can and starts writing.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> i know your favorite song </em>
</p><p>
  <em> i hear it every day </em>
</p><p>
  <em> whoever made your smile </em>
</p><p>
  <em> made it to get in my way </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Harry’s smile is burned into Niall’s retinas. It’s the smile he remembers the best, because Harry’s smile was made to light up the world. It exists to keep the dark from swallowing them, and Niall knows that if Harry were to stop smiling, if he were to stop dancing ridiculously in the living room to the saddest music ever created, then their world would well and truly end.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> and every time you laugh </em>
</p><p>
  <em> you make that little sound </em>
</p><p>
  <em> it’s just the hardest thing </em>
</p><p>
  <em> to love you but not know how </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Louis remains an enigma that only they know. Still, loving him has never been easy. He’s always toeing the line between honesty and cruelty, his words harsh and cutting at his worst and sarcastic and flippant at his best. Nonetheless, Niall wakes up every day and loves him, because there is no other way he knows how to live. His breath is written into Louis’ veins, and his heart will forever beat to the rhythm of his footsteps.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> what good are words </em>
</p><p>
  <em> when they always just get in our way </em>
</p><p>
  <em> and it hurts the most just to know </em>
</p><p>
  <em> that you don’t feel the same </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Liam, he’s simple. He’s Zayn’s. That’s all there is to it, Liam is Zayn’s, because those two were born to love each other, in whatever way. Liam is exhaustion and sadness and warmth and safety and home, and Liam is colors, but his orange sunset is balanced out by Zayn’s purple night, and Niall has always known that his blue sky and yellow sun disappear as soon as Liam lays eyes on Zayn. Niall doesn’t know a lot, but that much he knows: Liam will always belong to Zayn unequivocally, because Niall is the day and the sunset always ends with the night.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> so sometimes i get down on my knees </em>
</p><p>
  <em> and i pray things will change </em>
</p><p>
  <em> but life is what happens </em>
</p><p>
  <em> when things don’t work out our way </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Niall has spent countless hours trying to find the exact moment Zayn decided to leave them. Was it when he first met Perrie’s eyes, or when Liam reunited with Danielle, or had he never really planned on staying? Niall’s never quite sure, but the truth is he’s not sure knowing would make it any easier. He never wanted Zayn’s leaving them to be their sole memory of him, but he’s smart enough to know it’s the one stain on their lives that they’ll never truly be able to wash off. What once was a perfect white puzzle, only ever scarred by black lyrics and yellow spotlights, became a rainbow of hurt and fear the moment Zayn left, and they can never change that. Something in them broke that night, and there’s no putting it back together no matter how close they all end up.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> so i spend all my nights </em>
</p><p>
  <em> in the dark and afraid </em>
</p><p>
  <em> cause i’ve tried to forget you </em>
</p><p>
  <em> but these things just don’t go away </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Maybe Niall’s an idiot. Maybe this love he’s built with them, this home and this future he’s found, maybe they’re pointless. Maybe they’re all going to go their separate ways at the end of this anyway. Maybe they’ll all marry girls and have children and drift apart, and maybe they’ll die without ever knowing what perfect happiness feels like. But maybe they were never meant to be perfectly happy anyway, just happy enough. To be honest, most days Niall’s not sure happiness was ever a possibility for them at all.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> i hate that you’re perfect </em>
</p><p>
  <em> perfect for me </em>
</p><p>
  <em> if i didn’t know better </em>
</p><p>
  <em> then i would believe </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Soulmates don’t exist. Niall should know this better than anyone by now, and yet every morning he watches Harry and Louis dance and Zayn and Liam kiss and it’s impossible to know. If he squints hard enough, he can see the red strings connecting them all, and if he closes his eyes, he can see the golden strings drawing them back to him too.</p><p>Maybe he’ll die as their friend. But if those four manage to find their way, maybe Niall can die happy anyway. Because goddamnit, he may not get a happy ending in all of this but his boys - his perfect, beautiful boys - they fucking deserve one.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> we were made for each other </em>
</p><p>
  <em> but i’d know the truth </em>
</p><p>
  <em> you’re no good for me </em>
</p><p>
  <em> i’m no good for you </em>
</p><p> </p><p>What good is life if you don’t spend it with the people you love? If you don’t fight with everything in you to be next to them through it all? If you give up on them and even yourself because you can’t be bothered to hope for sunshine when it’s raining?</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> and i hate that you’re perfect </em>
</p><p>
  <em> you’re perfect for me </em>
</p><p>
  <em> i hate that you’re perfect </em>
</p><p>
  <em> you’re perfect for me </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Niall their sunshine. Niall is their happiness. Niall is their hope.</p><p>Fuck it all, maybe they’ll die tomorrow. Maybe it’s already over. But Niall isn’t giving up. He’s been gone five years from these boys and he refuses to spend another second not being with them, however that is.</p><p>Niall loves Harry. Niall loves Louis. Niall loves Liam. Niall loves Zayn. Against his better judgement, against fate herself, Niall loves them all.</p><p>However this ends, that fact will remain the same.</p><p>They are his home.</p><p>They are his colors.</p><p>They are his five point star.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>it all fell</b>
</p><p>
  <b>it all fell down</b>
</p><p>
  <b>it all fell down</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes Niall forgets that just because they’re safe from the world in this house doesn’t mean they’re safe from each other. Because once again, on a cozy quiet Saturday just when Niall feels like nothing can go wrong, they implode.</p><p>“What is this?” Harry hisses, wrenching the blunt from Louis’ numb fingers. “What the fuck is this, Louis?”</p><p>Zayn and Liam have gone quiet in the doorway. Niall watches from his chair in the corner, realizing with a sudden clarity that they’re not going to relapse from this one so easily.</p><p>Louis shrugs. He knows Harry knows, his eyes bloodshot and dead above a bored grin. He pulls the blunt back from Harry’s hands, kissing his knuckles before taking another drag.</p><p>Harry’s eyes shatter into tears like a kaleidoscope, his hands covering his mouth in a vain attempt to stop the sobs. Niall wonders when exactly Louis started caring more about nameless drugs than he did about Harry Styles.</p><p>It doesn’t matter now, he supposes. Harry shrinks back into himself, stumbling around as he tries to find something to catch himself on. That something ends up being Liam, whose own chest is moving rapidly up and down as he starts to panic at the sight of them all torn to pieces again. Niall moves as quickly as he can to them, pressing strong hands into their shoulders and hoping his whispers of assurance will be enough to hold them over.</p><p>It’s Zayn who steps towards Louis finally, hands clenched into fists as he stomps across the living room floor and tears the blunt from Louis’ hands, flicking it out the window. Louis looks at him with the slightest annoyance, but other than that gives no reaction. And that, the apathy of the boy they all love so much, the apathy of the boy who loves <em> them, </em> that’s what seems to break Zayn open.</p><p>“Stop, Louis,” he growls. “Stop this, or we kick you out. Yeah, we’ll die without you, but at least it won’t hurt so fucking bad anymore.”</p><p>Louis’ eyes travel up Zayn’s body under fluttering eyelashes, a smirk slowly stretching across his face. At the sight, Harry whimpers, and Niall shushes him, pressing a kiss to his hair.</p><p>“You’d never kick me out,” Louis retorts. His smile is cruel. “You’re the only one who ever leaves.”</p><p>Zayn’s jaw clenches, his Adam’s apple bobbing, but he stands his ground. He shakes his head, keeping his fists carefully at his sides despite how much he probably wants to punch Louis’ lights out.</p><p>“No,” he says. “<em>You’re </em> leaving. Right now. Get out.”</p><p>Louis scoffs, sitting up. He slumps forward, flicking Zayn’s foot. Zayn flinches, but still doesn’t move, staring Louis down with everything he can muster.</p><p>“You’ll never make me leave,” Louis says, which is true. “You love me too much.” Also true. “And anyway, it’s not like you aren’t just the same.”</p><p>Zayn shakes his head. His eyes glisten in the sunlight, his tears just as beautiful as the rest of him. Niall loves him so goddamn fucking much.</p><p>“No, I’m not,” Zayn whispers. With every word, his voice rises, his hands now open and reaching for Louis. “No, I’m not, Louis, because I stopped. I’ve been clean for five years, because that’s what happens when you die of your own filth. You get clean.”</p><p>Louis’ head tilts in Zayn’s hands, but Zayn holds him steady, dropping to his knees. It’s so quiet, so still. Niall is afraid to move at all.</p><p>“I’m sober, Lou,” Zayn murmurs. “And you’re right, I love you too much to make you leave. But that’s because I overdosed, because I didn’t have the choice to stay with you, and I will never be okay with that. I made myself better, I forced myself to <em> become better, </em> and you need to do the same.”</p><p>He places a single, soft kiss to Louis’ forehead. Liam lets out a soft gasp in Niall’s arms, and Niall kisses his cheek, trying to keep him from ruining… whatever this is.</p><p>“I love <em> you, </em> Louis,” Zayn says, his voice wet with tears. They’re slipping down his cheeks now as Louis stares, his eyes shining with broken glass. “I love <em> you, </em> not this high, apathetic shell of yourself you’ve become. So yes, I will make you leave. Because living without you is no different than living with your ghost, and we’ve already been doing that for months.”</p><p>With that, he stands, pulling back from Louis and making his way upstairs, leaving them all to stare at each other in horrible, suffocating silence. And as Louis’ eyes turn dead and Harry’s cries consume him and Liam’s panic steals his breath, Niall waits for the relapse that never comes.</p><p>Still, he doesn’t move. Still, he doesn’t let go. He reminds himself, slow and clear, <em> Don’t give up. </em></p><p>
  <em> Whatever you do, don’t give up. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>it all fell down</b>
</p><p>
  <b>it all fell down</b>
</p><p>
  <b>it all fell down</b>
</p><p> </p><p>When Niall wakes up the next morning, he’s greeted by silence and the whistling of the tea kettle. He rises slowly, not seeing much point in rushing when only sadness is waiting downstairs, and finds a soft grey sweater to pull on with some matching grey sweatpants. None of them really wear color anymore, not even Harry, and it’s one of those things Niall thinks he’d be sad about if he didn’t already have so many other things to be sad about.</p><p>Louis is the first one Niall sees when he finally makes his way downstairs and into the kitchen, slumped at the table with his shaking hands splayed in front of him. None of the other boys are touching him, with Zayn and Liam curled together on the other side of the table and Harry alone in the kitchen, sneaking glances at them over the counter as he bustles around. Louis looks like a dead doll, eyes blank and stuck on the mahogany his fingers are tapping restlessly against.</p><p>Niall, helpless against his love for these boys, drops a kiss to Louis’ head on his way by. Though Louis doesn’t move, his eyes light up just the tiniest bit, so Niall counts it as a win.</p><p>Harry kisses him as soon as he’s close enough, wrapping his freakishly long arms around Niall’s neck and tangling his fingers in his hair, whispering a soft good morning against his lips. Niall closes his eyes, keeping his forehead pressed against Harry’s even as the kettle’s whistling rings shrilly in his ears.</p><p>Breakfast is much the same. They remain silent, not daring to speak over Ed Sheeran’s <em> Supermarket Flowers </em>on repeat, and Harry holds Niall’s hand under the table. Niall manages to keep down the infinitesimal amount of food he’s eaten, trying to drown out the churning in his stomach with his thoughts. Zayn eats almost nothing at all.</p><p>Louis falls asleep soon after he’s finished eating, head in his arms on the table. Zayn moves to sit beside him, taking Louis’ hand and closing his eyes. With that, Liam stands, stopping in the doorway and turning back to Niall and Harry.</p><p>“Are you coming?”</p><p>Harry shrugs, joining him by door. Niall follows in kind, leaving with a glance at Zayn and Louis behind them, Zayn’s head now in his arm as well as he mumbles to Louis. Niall can’t hear what he’s saying, and Louis is sleeping right through it, but Zayn’s eyes are soft and fond as he speaks, so Niall doesn’t ask.</p><p>Instead, he follows Liam and Harry upstairs to Louis’ room, where they dig through the soccer balls and notebooks and jackets to find all the little plastic baggies they can, gathering them and the drugs they carry into their arms. When they’re sure they’ve found everything, they travel back downstairs, where Zayn waits with his arms open for them.</p><p>They wander out into the yard together, the four of them, and stumble around the wide open field until Harry suddenly stops, dropping to his knees and letting all of the bags fall from his arms.</p><p>He starts to claw at the ground with his hands, soft from the rain, and it doesn’t take long for the others to join him, carving a hole in the earth large enough to dump all of the little bags into, burying them along with all the trouble they bring.</p><p>Wet and muddy, they make their way back to the house in the rain, hands clasped and steps steady. Louis is still asleep when they get back, but they make no move to wake him, instead separating and heading to their own rooms to shower and then do as they please.</p><p>It will be a long, hard road from here, Niall thinks. But he’ll walk it.</p><p>And they’ll follow.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>and all i gave you is gone</b>
</p><p>
  <b>tumbled like it was stone</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Even when everything is bad, there are good moments in between. Like it used to be at their concerts, when their ears were blown out from the shrill screams and booming beats and then suddenly there was silence.</p><p>Now, in the quiet of the dark night with only crickets chirping and Ellie Goulding’s <em> How Long Will I Love You </em> playing softly from the record player, is one of those good moments. Niall watches Zayn hold Harry close to his chest, the two of them dancing like a swan and a newborn duckling. It’s all wrong, all clumsy and uncoordinated, because Harry keeps knocking his long limbs into things and spinning too wildly, but Zayn is still beaming at him like it’s the most endearing thing he’s ever seen.</p><p>Niall sits slumped against Liam on the couch, a soft smile on his face and his eyes drooping. He’s hugging Zayn’s stupid elephant, rubbing its ears in soft circles every once in awhile. Liam snores, head thrown back and hand in Niall’s, and Niall loves him.</p><p>Louis is curled in the other corner of the couch, his twinkling eyes caught on Harry and Zayn. He’s still quiet and withdrawn, his words locked in a cage by Zayn’s own biting ones the other night, but he’s grinning now, watching them dance like it’s the best thing he’s seen in years.</p><p>And sure, Niall knows it’ll all go to shit again, and probably soon. But at least they’ve got this - this moment, here and now.</p><p>At least they’ve got each other.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>thought we built a dynasty</b>
</p><p>
  <b>that heaven couldn’t shake</b>
</p><p> </p><p>They should’ve known better than to think they could get away with it. Louis never takes anything lying down, especially not the theft of his livelihood, and so it only takes a few days before he comes storming into the kitchen on a warpath.</p><p>He barely glances at the rest of them, who are sitting at the table and watching him with carefully shut mouths and wide eyes. Instead he heads straight for Harry, slamming his hands down on the counter with a terrifying bang.</p><p>Liam whimpers, curling into Zayn’s side. Harry jumps at the sound, shrinking back into the counter when he whips around to see Louis’ thundering eyes.</p><p>“Lou-bear, I -”</p><p>“You what, Hazza? You fucking what? Took all my stuff and hid it somewhere? You think that’ll make me better?”</p><p>Harry nods meekly, gripping the counter so tight his knuckles are white. Niall wants to shove himself in between them, but he’s stuck in his chair, glued to the wood in his fear.</p><p>Louis laughs. It’s hard and cold and horrible, and Niall suddenly wants to run away from here and never look back.</p><p>“It helps me, Harry! The drugs, they fucking help me! It fucking hurts not to have them, Jesus Christ, Hazza, stand the fuck up -”</p><p>“They don’t fucking help you!” Harry screams, shooting up from the floor where he’d tumbled and pressing his hands onto Louis’ chest, shoving him backwards. “<em>We </em> help you, Louis! Fuck you if you think we don’t! We’re better than drugs, Louis, <em> you </em> are better than drugs and -”</p><p>“It makes my brain shut up!” Louis bursts out, pressing Harry back against the counter again. Niall can’t breathe.</p><p>The silence is thick and inescapable and Niall is <em> drowning </em> in it.</p><p>“It’s the only thing that makes my brain shut up, Hazza,” Louis murmurs, finally. “The voices are there all the time and they tell me how much they hate me and how much you hate me and the drugs make them shut up and you’ve really finally gone mad if you think I’m gonna give that up.”</p><p>His eyes harden into cold shells again as he pushes right up against Harry, holding his wrists so hard Harry flinches, pleading with Louis to please please <em> please </em> let go.</p><p>“Why don’t you stop this, Haz?” Louis rasps. “If I have to lose my fix then you’ve gotta lose yours. It’s only fair.”</p><p>“Let go of me,” Harry whispers. There are tears on his cheeks, shining in the lamplight, and out of the corner of his eye Niall can see Zayn stand up.</p><p>“Why should I, Harry?” Louis asks, sneering. “You took my fucking fix. It hurts now, Hazza, shouldn’t you hurt too? Isn’t that what we promised?”</p><p>“You’re scaring me,” Harry says. “Louis, please, you’re scaring me.”</p><p>Zayn tries to move towards them, but Niall grabs his wrist as he passes by, holding on tight. He hates this, he hates that they’re imploding again, but if they don’t implode then they don’t relapse, and then he’ll really lose them for good.</p><p>“Good,” Louis hisses. “We should all be fucking terrified.”</p><p>Harry’s lip trembles. He surges forward, shaking violently as he kisses Louis with everything in him, Louis letting go of his wrists in surprise. As soon as he’s set free, Harry slips to his knees, staring at the fingerprint-shaped bruises blooming on his wrists.</p><p>“I hate you,” he sobs. “I can’t love you like this. You’re not you anymore, I don’t love you anymore, I, fuck…”</p><p>Louis stands frozen still, like a stone statue in their kitchen, eyes staring straight ahead out the window into the grey. His hands start to shake by his sides as Harry cries louder.</p><p>“I hate you. I hate you. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you…”</p><p>Finally, Niall lets Zayn go. But he doesn’t move, all of them stuck in this terrible, horrible moment where everything ends.</p><p>Niall waits with bated breath for the relapse. For them to make up, to fix things, to fucking <em> move, </em> but nothing happens, even as the seconds drag on into minutes and then hours.</p><p><em> Don’t give up, </em> he reminds himself. <em> It’ll all be fine in the end. It always is. Just don’t give up. Remember, whatever you do, don’t give up. </em></p><p>His mind laughs. Niall understands, suddenly, why they all have their fixes.</p><p><em> They’ll kill you, </em> something dark and bleeding rasps from deep inside his mind. It sounds dead, like hope, but Niall shuts it out, closing his eyes.</p><p>“I don’t care.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>thought we built a dynasty</b>
</p><p>
  <b>like nothing ever made</b>
</p><p> </p><p>And the thing is, he probably <em> should. </em></p><p>Niall <em> knows </em> this isn’t healthy. They’re all sick and dying, and they don’t help each other like Harry says. Niall wants to believe that they do, but really they just chase each other until they’re all trapped and cowering, and then they let each other go and the race starts again.</p><p>They can’t live like this. Things have to get better or else they’ll be dead within the month.</p><p>The end of the world was never going to kill them. It was always this, always each other, and Niall knows that this is the moment he either runs and survives or stays and dies. There is no other ending to this.</p><p>So that night, he packs his bags. It hurts, every moment, every movement, but he doesn’t have a choice anymore, not really. Either it hurts right now or it hurts forever.</p><p>He doesn’t take everything. Just the best photographs, the ones he knows aren’t online, and all the little notes they used to give each other. A few songs he’s written since this started, so they’ll know he still loves them when he next sings on air. The four stuffed animals he’s named after his boys, and something borrowed from each of them. One of Louis’ denim jackets, one of Liam’s flannels, one of Zayn’s drawings, and one of Harry’s headscarves. Maybe when he’s older, he’ll leave these at their graves.</p><p>When he finally zips up the suitcase and makes his way to his bedroom door, he stops with his hand on the knob. It’s hard to breathe suddenly, like the air is water and he’s drowning all over again, but Niall ignores it, staring up at the glow stars on his ceiling one last time.</p><p>Maybe they just aren’t meant for a happy ending. Like most stars, they aren’t supposed to last forever, just for what feels like a few billion years. Niall’s been watching them implode for a decade, and the truth is he’s always known that there would one day come a time when they wouldn’t relapse.</p><p>He just always kinda hoped he’d be wrong.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>thought we built a dynasty</b>
</p><p>
  <b>forever couldn’t break up</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Zayn is waiting for him by the door.</p><p>“Leaving?” He asks, reaching for the knob. “You gotta say goodbye first.”</p><p>Niall smiles, shaking his head.</p><p>“You didn’t.”</p><p>Zayn shrugs, pulling Niall’s bag gently from his hand and dropping it to the ground.</p><p>“No,” he says, leaning in and cradling Niall’s face in his hands. His smile is soft, his eyes twinkling, and Niall feels the butterflies erupt in his stomach like a lukewarm volcano. “But you aren’t me.”</p><p>Niall shrugs. When Zayn kisses him, it’s not a surprise. It’s not fireworks or sparks or home, it’s just… normal. It’s not like this is the first time they’ve kissed.</p><p>Still, something in Niall’s heart sings.</p><p>When Zayn finally breaks the kiss, his lips are red and shining with spit. He pecks Niall’s nose and then his mouth one last time before pulling away completely, handing Niall his bag back.</p><p>“I think you should stay,” he says. “I won’t ask you to. I won’t make you. I just… we always wind up back here in the end, don’t we?”</p><p>Niall shakes his head. He’s smiling, but he doesn’t feel warm anymore, just lonely and endlessly cold.</p><p>“It’s not healthy, Zee,” he whispers. “This is pointless. Sometimes love just isn’t enough.”</p><p>Zayn shrugs, heading back into the kitchen. There’s only one light on in there, and Zayn glows under it, like an angel.</p><p>“Maybe not for you. But I’ll be here with you until I end, and that’s a promise.”</p><p>The elephant watches Niall from the counter, its deep black eyes taking apart his soul. Zayn doesn’t seem to notice, too busy drawing butterflies around the window over the sink.</p><p>“What if that’s just it, Zaynie?” Niall rasps. “What if we die here? What if we kill each other?”</p><p>Zayn shrugs once again. They’re all fucking crazy, Niall thinks, but he can feel his resolve slipping anyway.</p><p>“We died a long time ago, Ni,” Zayn says. “Ghosts can’t kill each other.”</p><p>And Niall wants to point out that there are still millions of people out there grieving them, but he doesn’t. Because Zayn is right, and the house’s door may be open, but none of them can ever really leave again.</p><p>“How’d we die then?” He asks, leaving his bag by the door as he wanders over to Zayn in the kitchen. Zayn smiles, turning around and kissing Niall once more before dragging him into a long, gentle hug.</p><p>“Officially? That overdose five years ago put me in the ground. Harry probably bled out. I’ll bet Liam had a heart attack, and you wasted away, and Louis followed in my footsteps.”</p><p>He presses a kiss to Niall’s neck.</p><p>“Honestly?” He pulls away then, keeping his hands on Niall’s hips and their foreheads pressed together. “Loneliness. Our loneliness killed us.”</p><p>It’s sick, but it makes Niall smile. He shrugs, shaking his head.</p><p>“Nah.”</p><p>“Hmmm?” Zayn murmurs, tugging at the hem of Niall’s shirt. Niall slides his hands over Zayn’s, up and down his arms and finally up to his shoulders. He kisses Zayn soft, slow, and thinks of how the others are upstairs sleeping restlessly, their chests still rising and falling.</p><p>“Harry went first, a little bit after we ended. Then you died, yeah, I bet. But I think Liam and Louis and I, we all went in the same car accident. Liam instantly, me on the way to the hospital, and Louis in the early morning hooked up to a bunch of machines. That’s how we went. Violently, stupidly, horribly. We crashed and burned and just finally gave in.”</p><p>Zayn smiles. Niall loves him.</p><p>“Yeah,” he whispers, bumping his nose against Niall’s until Niall kisses him again. “Yeah, that’s probably it.”</p><p>And then there are no more words, but in the silence, Niall sways with Zayn in his arms and wonders how he ever could’ve given this up.</p><p>Because Zayn, for all his faults, is never wrong. Because they love each other, even in death. Because yes, when it comes down to it -</p><p>
  <em> We always wind up back here in the end. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>it all fell</b>
</p><p>
  <b>it all fell down</b>
</p><p>
  <b>it all fell down</b>
</p><p> </p><p>When Niall arrives at breakfast, an hour late because sleeping doesn’t exactly come easy after almost leaving your fucking life behind, it’s quiet. There are birds chirping outside, and it’s raining under the sound of Kelly Clarkson’s <em> Born To Die </em> on the record player. Harry’s still buying odd things, even after all these years - none of them have ever even seen <em> half </em> the movies Harry buys the soundtracks of, but he insists on listening to them on repeat anyway, and none of them are strong enough to argue with him.</p><p>Niall used to think he was crazy for it. For buying anything crazy and unfit for normalcy, but now he gets it. It’s hard to love normal things when you aren’t normal yourself.</p><p>It’s taken a long time for them to love themselves. Sometimes they still don’t, but at least they know the others love them. After so many years, they almost feel like a single person; Niall no longer needs to ask them anything, because he just understands.</p><p>They are just like him. They have always been just like him.</p><p>Zayn manages to choke down three bites before giving up, looking tired through the tears. Liam’s asleep with his head on the table, Zayn’s hand in his hair, and Niall traces Zayn’s bones through his skin with his eyes.</p><p>Harry and Louis sit next to each other in silence. Louis stares at his half-empty plate while Harry quietly takes bites every few seconds. His hair’s unbrushed and tangled, all his tattoos showing beneath the hoodie of Liam’s he’s wearing over boxers. With the sleeves rolled up, Niall can see his scars, pink and irritated from the way Harry keeps mindlessly scratching at them. Louis looks no better, hands shaking as he taps out drum beats on the table, black bags under his eyes and angry red spots on his knuckles from punching things he shouldn’t. His pajamas are worn and old, leftover relics from their early days.</p><p>Niall kisses each of them on the head on his way by, eventually settling next to Zayn, who takes his hand. Eating comes slow and never easy, but Niall swallows down as many bites as he can, finally giving up around halfway through.</p><p>It’s always cold here, Niall’s noticed. The skies are always grey, even when it doesn’t rain, and the wind blows the door shut most of the time. With the world ending and everything, Niall’s forgotten what time means mostly, but sometimes when he’s awake late at night he stares out the window and thinks about how at the very least, it should be passing.</p><p>He counts the seconds in his head up to ten minutes. With that, he stands and walks with slow steps towards the bathroom. He kneels by the toilet, waiting for one of them to follow him and card their fingers through his hair, but nobody comes.</p><p>He waits there for what feels like an eternity, staring into the still clear water. When he empties himself, it’s always ugly and gross, like a dump of unwanted and possessed toys. The water, still clean so long as his stomach is churning and his mouth is closed, reflects his dull blue eyes back to him, and the smile missing from beneath them.</p><p>Back when the whole vomiting thing - <em> bulimia, </em> his mind reminds him distantly. <em> It’s called bulimia </em> - started, Niall used to think all the time about those stories where people breathed through flowers because of their broken hearts, because they loved someone with everything in them and that someone didn’t love them back.</p><p>There was always something disturbingly poetic about it, Niall thought. When he had his fingers down his throat and was praying to see his heart through his ribs in the mirror, he’d imagine what his flowers would look like if he was sick like that. If the people he loved didn’t love him back.</p><p>Sunflowers for Harry, he’d decided. As the years passed on, and he mulled it over more, he’d chosen bluebells for Louis, and just last year roses for Liam. A few months ago, when Zayn had first run his fingers through Niall’s hair as he curled around the toilet in his desperation to be empty again, he’d thought through the disgusting haze that for Zayn there’d be irises.</p><p>See, he’s always known they love him. That’s the thing about their whole fucked-up soulmate thing - there’s never been any doubt that the five of them were way too in love to be anything else. It’s just, there’d always been choices to make and an odd number of hearts, and so they all got split unevenly and Niall was the one left behind.</p><p>And he’s not okay with it, not really. He’ll never be alright with the fact that they’ll always love him just a little bit less than they love each other, but in the end he can live with it so long as they stay with him, beside him, and love him when it rains.</p><p>Outside, the sky cries harder. Niall can’t hear anything but the droplets against the windows now, all the music and voices drowned out, and he thinks somehow it’s better that way.</p><p>The toilet water is still clear and clean. As he presses two fingers to the back of his throat and feels the bile climb its way up his esophagus, he thinks that if they were as sick for him as he is for them, they’d never stop coughing up forget-me-nots.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>it all fell down</b>
</p><p>
  <b>it all fell down</b>
</p><p>
  <b>it all fell down</b>
</p><p> </p><p>They’ve been more than friends for years now, is the thing.</p><p>Every theory, every story, every notion the fans have attached to them are about how they had such a long, hard, lonely road to get where they are now. How they pined and how they fucked and how they cried, only to explode away from each other as soon as things slid into place.</p><p>None of them have ever fucked, not really. Sex has never been something they worried about all that much - they’d kiss someone in public, hold each other’s hands, and let everyone else make their assumptions. Fuck everyone else, honestly, Niall thinks, because why should it matter to them where he and his boys’ bodies have been?</p><p>But the road they took to get here, to be beside each other now, it wasn’t lonely. Yeah, it was long. It’s been ten years. Yeah, it was hard. It still is. But that road, it was never lonely. It’s never been lonely.</p><p>That road, as long and as hard as it is, they’ve walked it together. Sometimes one of them falls behind, but another of them always stops the others so they can catch up. There was never any doubt about their love for each other, there never could be; soulmates are never just fucking <em> friends. </em></p><p>Maybe they aren’t meant for a happy ending. But Niall, he’ll be damned if he doesn’t fight until the very last second for one with them. If he has his way, they won’t <em> end </em> at all.</p><p>They’re so far from happy. They are so, so far from happy. But they still smile every day. They still find joy in the small things, in the way their hands fit perfectly together. In the sun, in the moon, in the rain, they find their own joy, letting it come to them when the lights go out.</p><p>Niall doesn’t chase them anymore. They will always find him again; he doesn’t need to try so fucking hard.</p><p>Now, everything is quiet. It’s one of those days where everything seems like it just might be alright, and Niall holds on to the hope that one day they will be.</p><p>Liam’s watching Zayn sleep, tracing his sunken cheekbones with his finger. There’s a soft smile on his face as Zayn snuffles in his sleep, his head lolling onto Liam’s shoulder. In the moonlight, he looks almost translucent, silver like a ghost, and Niall feels his heart swell with love for them.</p><p>Louis sits under the window, like always. Criss-cross, he plucks at random strings on Niall’s guitar as the same silver shining on Zayn frames his head like a halo. He has no wings, he never has, but Niall’s suddenly tempted to call him angel. A broken one, sure, and a fallen one too, but an angel nonetheless.</p><p>And Harry, oh, beautiful Harry. His eyes are closed as he squats on the rocking chair, keeping his precarious balance with a smile, hair blowing in the wind from the open window. He’s holding his arms out, letting the moonlight wash over all his scars, old and new. He seems more at peace than he ever has, humming something unfamiliar under his breath.</p><p>Niall spares him a soft smile, one that Harry doesn’t see, and turns from his place in the doorway to wander into the foyer. The door is still open from last night, leaves blowing past but never in, and Niall allows himself a moment to feel the wind chill his bones before stepping forward to close it.</p><p>“No, please!”</p><p>Niall turns towards the voice, grinning as Harry scrambles from his chair and runs up to him, taking his face in his hands and kissing him.</p><p>“You taste like Zayn,” he babbles as he pulls back, licking his lips. “It’s nice.”</p><p>With that, he takes Niall’s hand, standing in front of the door and closing his eyes again as the wind ruffles his clothes and hair. His smile is like the sun, brilliant and shining, and Niall wants to kiss him again.</p><p>So he does. Because he can.</p><p>Harry grins into his mouth, hand cradling Niall’s face. Harry will always taste like stars to Niall, like stars and spotlights and sunflowers, and that’s just the way he likes it.</p><p>The others have joined them now, Louis sidling up to Liam, who holds a sleepy Zayn’s hand while Zayn rubs at his eyes tiredly.</p><p>Niall’s learned a few things, in all his years. Not many, but a few.</p><p>If you want love, you gotta fight for it.</p><p>If you want love, you gotta believe in it.</p><p>If you want love, you gotta dance in the rain for it.</p><p>So that’s exactly what he does, dragging Harry out into the rain by the hand and waiting for the others to follow, as they always do. Hair stuck to their faces and clothes sculpting their bodies, they look beautiful here, out in the open and laughing. While Zayn and Liam sway, pressed close together and whispering against each other’s lips, Harry actually smiles at Louis, taking his hesitant hands and spinning him around. Their feet slip in the mud, sending them tumbling to the ground, but they’re beaming into each other’s mouths and Niall can’t see anything wrong with the mess that they’ve become in that moment.</p><p>All of the promises, all of the pain, all of everything he’s ever had and will ever have with them, it all comes back to here. To home, to love, to them.</p><p>Out of all the stars in the sky, theirs shines the brightest.</p><p><em> We’re gonna make it, </em> he thinks, running out to join them. <em> I think we’re finally gonna make it. </em><br/><br/></p><p> </p><p>
  <em> ask me for anything. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> the answer is yes. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> - Sarah Henstra (We Contain Multitudes) </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>again, please don't kill me &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Zayn</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>i see this for what it is.<br/>i was dancing when the music stopped.<br/>and in the disbelief, i can’t face reinvention.<br/>i haven’t met the new me yet.<br/>past the blood and bruise, past the curses and cries -<br/>would’ve loved you for a lifetime.<br/>you haven’t met the new me yet.<br/>i can’t make it go away.<br/>i guess it’s the price i paid for seven years in heaven.<br/>no one teaches you what to do when a good man hurts you<br/>and you know you hurt him, too.<br/>after giving you the best i had - tell me what to give after that?<br/>in our history, across our great divide,<br/>there is a glorious sunrise.<br/>leave it all behind,<br/>and there is happiness…</p><p>- Taylor Swift (happiness)</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>lyrics taken from "Good Old Days" by Macklemore &amp; Kesha</p><p>PLAYLIST: common: 3) Zayn</p><p>SONGS SUNG OR "WRITTEN" OR REFERENCED IN THIS CHAPTER:<br/>Coming Home (Part II) (Skylar Grey) [altered lyrics]<br/>F U Till I F U (Call Me Karizma &amp; Cass)<br/>ill come back to you (Powfu, Sarcastic Sounds, Rxseboy)<br/>Easy (Camila Cabello)</p><p>enjoy :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> they saw a drunk, when i was broken. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> they saw sarcasm, when i was sobbing. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> they saw me push them away, when i was screaming </em>
</p><p>
  <em> for their love. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> - Dawn Kurtagich (The Dead House) </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>i was thinking about the band</b>
</p><p>
  <b>i was thinking about the fans</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Every day, Zayn wrote them letters.</p><p>No, they didn’t talk to each other after he left. Of course they didn’t; they were young and hurt and had no idea how to deal with losing one fifth of themselves. In the aftermath of his and Liam’s burning fire, the others waded through the ashes and worked together to keep Liam from drowning, leaving Zayn to sink.</p><p>He doesn’t blame them. He wishes they understood, but he knew when he made the choice to leave that they weren’t going to. Zayn is many things - he’s nothing short of an enigma - but he’s not an idiot.</p><p>Forgiveness doesn’t come easy. He broke them, tore them apart however gently, and scattered them across the world. He’s read all the articles that have come out over the years about his leaving, and he knows that if he’d stayed, they’d still be touring the world together now.</p><p>It’s better this way, he thinks. The five of them were never really meant for life.</p><p>Still, he wishes they’d lived. At least all the spotlights and interviews distracted them from the untouchable thing between them, the one everybody told them not to think about.</p><p>Fuck that. Zayn’s thought about it every day since he realized.</p><p>He loves them. He loves them all, his four beautiful soulmates, and he could never live without them. That being said, he can’t seem to live with them either.</p><p>They’ve been pulled together by gravity for years. Love takes time to grow, and it remains a garden they sometimes forget to water, but they’ve grown into what each other needs, over time, and they’ll never be just themselves again.</p><p>Zayn has a lot of regrets about his life. Leaving Liam, leaving all of them. Fucking all those girls he could never bring himself to love the right way, fucking Perrie when she needed it and he was lonely. Losing himself in the voices, losing himself to the dark and the hate and the gaping hole in his chest.</p><p>There’s also a lot of things he should regret but doesn’t. Kissing Louis in the dark when Liam was asleep with Harry on his chest. Kissing Niall when Liam was holding Louis’ hand in an elevator of the nearest shopping mall. Kissing Harry when Liam was dancing his sadness away with Niall at his favorite club to hate.</p><p>They need each other. Zayn’s learned that the hard way, after years of trying to love girls, trying to love only Liam, trying to love himself. The five of them are a star whose galaxy is long gone, but they hold on to each other as tightly as they can.</p><p>He remembers days spent in bed, eyes closed as the sunlight washed over him and the others watched him from the doorway. He remembers them distinctly, all the conversations he’s heard when they think he’s sleeping, but Zayn doesn’t sleep anymore. Zayn hasn’t slept in years.</p><p>He remembers Niall’s voice, a whisper amongst the storm in his head, <em> I’m gonna hold on to you forever. </em> He remembers thinking, <em> Yeah, right. </em>He remembers his heart caught in his throat, beating ever so faintly to the rhythm of their footsteps disappearing down the hall.</p><p>Zayn remembers, more than anything else, that their love for each other is a fire, its flames dancing in iridescent colors, and he’s been burning for years.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>we were underground</b>
</p><p>
  <b>loaded merch in that twelve-passenger van</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Zayn’s not sure when eating became something he couldn’t stand.</p><p>He’s seen the comments, the photos, the articles - Zayn’s beautiful, and he knows it. Still, whenever he looks in the mirror all he can see is a bleeding ghost of himself, and he can never quite help wanting to kill his reflection all over again.</p><p>He wonders if there’s any reality in which they survive this. In which they’re with each other and happy, rather than remaining constantly at war for no reason other than fear.</p><p>They’re afraid to be alone. It’s not even that they’re afraid to lose each other, it’s that they’re afraid to be alone. It’s why Zayn is the only one who ever left - he knows that while the dark and cold will kill him, <em> did </em> kill him, he can still survive without their hands all over him.</p><p>He will never be that ghost in the mirror again. When he left, pieces of him broke off and scattered everywhere, and now they’re lost beneath the ocean waves and in the tallest trees and Zayn will never get them back.</p><p>It upsets Liam, he knows. Zayn’s hurt a lot of people in his life, but Liam’s the one he regrets the most. He can’t help but think that maybe if he’d just stayed, Liam wouldn’t be the broken person he is now. That’s not true, that could never be true, but it rattles around Zayn’s head late at night nonetheless.</p><p>“Please eat,” Liam whispers to him now, his eyes alight with tears. The rain hits the windows like bullets, and Zayn feels them all pierce his heart every time he blinks.</p><p>“I can’t,” he chokes out, wrapping his arms around himself. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”</p><p>“You need to,” Harry mumbles from beside Louis, his hands folded in his lap as Louis leans against him. Niall’s just sitting there, still and quiet and so unlike himself, and Zayn swallows down the tears, willing himself not to cry. Not here, not now.</p><p>“Harry’s right,” Louis mumbles absentmindedly. He’s too busy twirling Harry’s unkempt curls around his fingers to look at Zayn, and that’s just it really. “You’ll die if you don’t eat.”</p><p>Zayn doesn’t know how to tell them he doesn’t care. He’s always been the one who’s a flight risk, and that hasn’t changed just because they’ve cut off his wings and chained them up in the attic.</p><p>“I can’t,” he whispers, hanging his head instead of meeting their eyes. “I’m sorry. I know I’m letting you down, I’ve let you all down, I…”</p><p>Liam shakes his head, taking Zayn’s face in his hands and kissing the tears off his cheeks. Zayn loves him, hates him, wants to disappear into the sky and fall like the rain to the ground.</p><p>“You could never let us down,” Liam murmurs. “That’s impossible, Zee.”</p><p>Zayn shrugs. It feels useless to argue. It feels useless to do much of anything, and he’s not hungry anymore.</p><p>“I already have,” he answers, then stands and leaves them there in the kitchen without him, just like that hotel room all those years ago.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>in a small club in minnesota</b>
</p><p>
  <b>and the snow outside of first ave</b>
</p><p> </p><p>The sky is wide and beautiful, a billion starry eyes staring back at him from the deep, dark blue. There are shadows all around him beneath the moon, always full, but even as they race at him from the trees, Zayn can’t bring himself to be afraid.</p><p>That’s the thing about fear - once you’re dead, nothing’s really terrifying anymore. Not even love.</p><p>He feels so small, here. Lost in the middle of nowhere, exactly where he belongs. Even on their bad days, he loves his boys, his home, with his entire being, and the wind feels like freedom as it spins around him.</p><p>In his hands, Alexandria is soft and real. He’s kept the elephant close for years, god knows why, unable to let go. She’s a constant in the chaos that is his life now, a single daffodil in a garden full of thorns.</p><p>He’s spent so long running from himself. Though his ribs are sharp beneath his sweater and his heart beats as slowly as a ballad, he knows that his feet will keep him still here, no matter what daggers fly his way. After so many years, after so much pain, Zayn accepts the knives buried in his skin as a gift.</p><p>In the end, he’ll be the only one left.</p><p>His legs wobble beneath him with the burden he’s carrying, Alexandria slipping from his hands. He lets himself collapse onto the grass, pulling fistfuls of it from the ground and throwing it up in the air like confetti. If he squints hard enough, the moon is a spotlight and the shadows have faces, a crowd of millions grasping at his feet.</p><p>Fame remains, Zayn thinks, his only mistake.</p><p>“What’re you doing out here?”</p><p>Zayn shrugs. He makes no move to stand, so Harry lies down beside him, threading their fingers together and holding on tight. It shouldn’t be so easy, Zayn thinks, for them all to fit together like this after all these years, but so it is, and so they do.</p><p>“Can’t sleep again?” Harry asks. “Whatcha thinking about?”</p><p>Again, Zayn shrugs. He knows they all have so many questions, but he doesn’t have any answers for them. He’s given up on learning anything other than them; he loves them, and that’s all he knows. He doesn’t need anything else.</p><p>“Stupid, aren’t we?” Harry says. “In love with each other? Who the fuck does that, y’know?”</p><p>Zayn smiles despite himself, turning his head on the grass. Mud is caked on his skin and he relishes in the cold that spreads through his veins and freezes them closed.</p><p>Tears slip down Harry’s cheeks, falling to the ground as he stares up at the sky with hazy eyes, the smile on his face wide and foolish. Out of all of them, Zayn thinks, Harry’s probably the most broken up about it all.</p><p>“I think we’re geniuses, actually,” Zayn murmurs, bringing Harry’s hand to his lips. “Falling like that.”</p><p>Harry looks at him then, his smile wry. He stares for a moment, seemingly trying to decipher the locks on Zayn’s soul, and Zayn doesn’t know how to tell him that he threw them all away years ago. He is torn open and burned inside out, for better or for worse.</p><p>“Really?” Harry asks, like he can’t quite believe they’re here, and Zayn nods. He leans in and kisses Harry as gently as he can, forgetting to breathe as Harry pulls him closer, fingers tightening in his.</p><p>“I never want this to end,” Harry gasps against his lips, pulling back to bury his head in Zayn’s neck. His curls are wet and limp in Zayn’s hands, dirty and familiar. “I never want to lose you again, Zaynie.”</p><p>Zayn pulls Harry upwards, stumbling towards the house with Harry shaking against him. They make it eventually, climbing up the steps and collapsing just inside the door, leaving it open for the wind to blow through.</p><p>“I’m not going anywhere,” he promises, kissing Harry again, and again, and again. “I’m not going anywhere, Haz.”</p><p>Harry laughs wetly, his eyes shining in the moonlight. His hands tremble on Zayn’s neck, thumbs brushing against his jaw with all the gentleness in the world. Zayn kisses him like this is the last time he’ll ever get to, like they’re never going to see each other again, because when the world is ending it feels like everything else is too.</p><p>“Yeah?” Harry rasps, and Zayn loves him more than anything.</p><p>“Yeah,” he whispers. “Yeah.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>i just wanted my name in a star</b>
</p><p>
  <b>now look at where we at</b>
</p><p>
  <b>still growing up, still growing up</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Zayn remembers how it felt, still. The drugs; the rush to his head, the racing of his heart, how nothing hurt because nothing was real.</p><p>He’s ashamed to admit that he misses it, sometimes. When it’s really late and he’s combing back through all his choices in life. Louis, he knows, is tired - Zayn doesn’t blame him for losing the battle. He’s just angry that Louis never bothered to begin the war.</p><p>Now, Louis is sitting with his legs crossed in the middle of the living room. The fireplace behind him is empty, thank god, as his movements are spastic and his hands are shaking.</p><p>Harry’s curled in Niall’s arms in the rocking chair. He watches Louis with tears streaming down his cheeks, soft sobs escaping from behind his hands. Niall keeps his eyes on the ceiling, head thrown back and hands stiff, but Zayn can see the tears pooling there. Liam remains still against the wall with his eyes closed and his hands over his ears, his knees pulled to his chest.</p><p>Zayn will never not want to take care of them. He’s always been willing to give his life for their happiness and safety, for them to be okay. He just wishes it were easier.</p><p>“Louis,” Zayn whispers, inching closer with his hands out. Louis doesn’t look at him, but suddenly freezes, staring straight ahead at the wall with dead eyes.</p><p>“Shut up,” he rasps. “Shut up. Go away.”</p><p>Zayn feels his chest shudder with the breath he pulls into his lungs. He steadies himself to the slow beating of his heart, stepping ever closer.</p><p>“Lou,” he says again. Louis remains stoic, unmoving as he stares at the wall, fire bleeding into his irises.</p><p>“You’re wrong,” he mutters. “You’re wrong. They love me. I’m staying. Fuck you.”</p><p>Zayn knows, with a sudden clarity, who Louis is talking to. He bites his lip, willing the tears back for just a few more minutes. Just a little while longer, while he gets Louis’ attention away from Simon and on him.</p><p>“Louis, baby,” he whispers, slowly settling on his knees beside him. “Lou, can you look at me, please?”</p><p>Louis moves not at all. Zayn ignores the creeping feeling of the others’ eyes on him, reaching carefully for Louis’ hand. He feels it tremble in his as he touches Louis’ face, guiding his eyes to Zayn’s.</p><p>Louis looks right through him. Oh, how Zayn hates being dead.</p><p>“Didn’t leave,” Louis mumbles. His eyes remain unblinking, tears slipping from them like rain. “Zayn wouldn’t leave. Zayn’d never leave us.”</p><p>Zayn forces himself to breathe, holding back the tears even as they pool faster and faster, begging to be let go. <em> No, </em> he thinks. <em> NO, HOLD ON. </em></p><p>“That’s right, Louis,” Zayn says. “That’s right, baby. I’d never leave you.”</p><p><em> That </em> wakes Louis up, his eyes burning as he shoves Zayn back so hard he hears the sickening crack of his own head hitting the ground.</p><p>“No!” Louis screams, scrambling to his feet as the others suddenly rush forward, Liam grasping Louis’ arms as he tries to lunge for Zayn, fists out. “No, I don’t want you! You left me, I don’t want you! Look what you did to me, look what you fucking did, I don’t fucking <em> want </em> you!”</p><p>Zayn ignores the tears on his cheeks and Niall’s hands on his arms, searching the ground with his fingers for the only thing he has that’s real. Over every inch of carpet and wood as Louis screams and Harry cries and Liam panics, he rushes to find Alexandria with an increasing urgency, only to come up empty-handed.</p><p>“Where is she?” He gasps, suddenly short of breath. His heart’s going to break right through his ribcage at this point, and he’s too weak to hold on, exhausted and starved of any strength. “Where is she, where the fuck is she, I need her -”</p><p>“Zaynie,” Niall says, hands cupping Zayn’s face. “Zaynie, where is who? Who do you need -”</p><p><em>“Alexandria,”</em> Zayn bursts, the name falling from his lips like blood. “Alexandria, Niall, I need -”</p><p>“We don’t know who that is,” Harry whispers from the corner, stuck to the wall with his nails digging into his arms and drawing blood. “We’re sorry, Zee, we don’t know who that is.”</p><p><em> I know, </em> Zayn wants to tell him, <em> I know, it’s okay, </em> but he’s so tired and he can’t breathe and Louis is still fucking <em> screaming </em> and his eyes roll back into his head before he can force them not to.</p><p>Sleep is such a sweet release.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>i’d be laying in my bed and dream about what i’d become</b>
</p><p>
  <b>couldn’t wait to get older</b>
</p><p>
  <b>couldn’t wait to be someone</b>
</p><p> </p><p>His dreams are blurry and familiar, the feeling of being completely safe in old hands overthrown by the eerie sensation of being chased by a million stomping feet. The air is cold around him, and he can hear the rain banging against the window through the haze of unconsciousness.</p><p>The others bustle around him. Every time he wakes up, there’s a new hand in his - sometimes soft, sometimes calloused, but always gentle, a reminder that nothing can hurt him here. They won’t let anything hurt him, except them.</p><p>Their star, like their fire, is burning. It tears his skin into ash, leaving him a skeleton whose bones are brittle and weak, the heart behind them cold and dead. Every day, Zayn tries to step closer to the fire, only to be pulled back by one of the others, never allowed to truly feel everything with them.</p><p>Zayn knows they’re scared. He knows they think the fire will consume them, will engulf them in its flames, but Zayn isn’t so sure. He left them once, and paid the price - nothing the blaze can do to him will ever match that pain.</p><p>That fire sustains them. That’s the truth, at the heart of it all; the fire burning at the center of their star keeps them alive and relapsing, refraining from straying too far from each other. If that fire goes out for any of them, they will die, and this time for good.</p><p>So Zayn wanders closer. Even as they grasp at him, even as they cry for him, even as they scream his name, he wanders closer, telling himself that the agony will all be worth it in the end.</p><p>Lies are easy to tell when you believe them.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>now that i’m here</b>
</p><p>
  <b>wishing i was still young</b>
</p><p>
  <b>those good old days</b>
</p><p> </p><p>When Zayn finally does come to, the air is cold around him. There’s no one holding his hand this time, and he can’t figure out whether that’s a good thing or not.</p><p>His ceiling is just as stained with paint as his walls. Something in his chest lurches as he realizes he’s staring into Liam’s eyes, wide and beautiful next to all the others.</p><p>After all this time, he still can’t bring himself to draw anything else but them.</p><p>Someone coughs in the doorway. Zayn tears his eyes from the drawing of Liam’s to meet Louis’, whose own are wide and blue and bloodshot. His knuckles are bruised, his cheeks red, and his fingers shake around the soft grey fur of Alexandria, all washed and clean.</p><p>“I found it outside. I don’t know… I thought… I thought maybe it’d help?”</p><p>Louis won’t apologize for his outburst. This is as close as he’ll get, and Zayn knows that, so he takes the elephant from Louis’ hands as soon as he’s close enough with a smile.</p><p>“Thank you for finding her,” he murmurs. Louis nods, opening his mouth with a million words on his tongue, but then decides against voicing any of them with a clench of his fists, instead climbing into the bed beside Zayn.</p><p>“Is that - um.”</p><p>Zayn smiles, shuffling closer so he can lean back against Louis’ chest. Louis keeps his arm on the headboard, but covers Zayn’s hand with his own, kissing his head.</p><p>“Alexandria,” Zayn answers. Louis nods, as if it makes perfect sense to him, and drops his head on top of Zayn’s. It’s too comfortable, too calm, considering who they are, but there’s no pattern to the way he and Louis love each other - it’s painful, sharp, <em> stupid, </em> but still the realest thing Zayn’s ever felt.</p><p>“Fuck you,” Louis sings, voice cracking halfway through, and Zayn closes his eyes as Louis’ lips meet his neck. The words seem to get lost in Louis’ mind, because he mostly hums along to the song in his head, only rasping a few lyrics here and there.</p><p>“I don’t wanna lose a friend,” he whispers now, his fingers tightening around Zayn’s. “I’m gonna love you forever. That’s just my curse, it’s whatever.”</p><p>Zayn wants to kiss him. Even after they’ve fucked each other up into irreparable pieces, Zayn still wants to kiss him. Because he and Louis, they’re worse than in love -</p><p>They’re best friends.</p><p>“I’m gonna love you forever,” he promises back, too tired to sing. Louis smiles against his shoulder.</p><p>“That’s just our curse, it’s whatever,” he answers, and Zayn loves him.</p><p>For better or worse, Zayn loves him.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>i wish somebody would have told me, babe</b>
</p><p>
  <b>someday these will be the good old days</b>
</p><p> </p><p>When Zayn finally comes down from his room, Louis’ hand clasped in his, the others are waiting. They turn their eyes to him, a million questions in their gaze.</p><p>Zayn only has the answer to one.</p><p>Holding up the elephant, he offers them a crooked smile. It’s the best he can do.</p><p>“Alexandria,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>Harry shakes his head with a fond smile, his hand holding Niall’s tight even as Niall trembles with laughter, eyes sunny and wet. Liam just sighs, standing and wandering over to the two of them.</p><p>He takes Zayn’s face in his hands and kisses him hard, just like he used to when they were young, and Zayn hums into his mouth, revelling in the warmth it sends spilling through his veins.</p><p>When he opens his eyes, Harry and Niall have wandered over, Louis tucked into Niall’s side as Harry takes his place beside Zayn. Zayn draws them in, wrapping his arms around all of them as far as he can, and grins into Liam’s shoulder.</p><p>“I love you,” he says, fisting his fingers into their shirts and holding on tight. “I love you all.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>all the love you won’t forget</b>
</p><p>
  <b>and all these reckless nights you won’t regret</b>
</p><p> </p><p>“I never wanted to leave you.”</p><p>In another world, maybe their eyes on him would be terrifying. But in this one, Zayn can read their bodies like braille, knowing every look in their eyes and inflection in their smiles by heart.</p><p>“I never wanted to leave you,” he repeats, stronger this time. “I left because it was too much. Because peace was everywhere, but I couldn’t find it. Because you were everything, but it wasn’t enough.”</p><p>He knows they won’t understand. They’ll never truly be able to separate his departure from their perceived inadequacy, but that’s not something Zayn can change. All he can do is tell them the truth.</p><p>“I couldn’t be with you anymore. Not in the band, anyway. I’m not strong like you, not perfect like you, not beautiful like you. All the fans, they were drawn to me because of who they thought I was - some uncaring, selfish bitch. Some mystery. They didn’t know me.”</p><p>He raises his eyes, slowly, to meet theirs.</p><p>“Not like you do.”</p><p>Harry’s smiling in that horrible way he does when he’s so sad he can’t cry, and Niall’s holding his hand like a lifeline, eyes shining with those same old unshed tears that seem to live there now. Liam’s just staring blankly at the wall, just a little past where Louis sits under the window, his hands tangled in his hair.</p><p>“We needed you,” Louis rasps, because he’s always been the one who tells it like it is. He rocks back and forth, eyes wild as they stare into the dark abyss between his knees and his chest, hands shaking in his hair. “We needed you, Zayn, you fucking knew that. We needed you to stay.”</p><p>Zayn watches him for a moment. In all their years, Louis is the one who’s unravelled the most, coming undone under the pressure and the loneliness. The five of them are held together by red and golden strings, but Louis’ has been stretched so tight Zayn’s afraid it might break.</p><p>“I know,” he whispers. “I know. When I left, I put myself before all of you, and I’m sorry. I’ll never make that mistake again.”</p><p>Louis shakes his head, muttering to himself. Niall’s face is streaked with tears now, but his voice is steady when he speaks, gentle and kind.</p><p>“You’re allowed, Zee,” he says. “We’re no use to each other dead.”</p><p>Zayn shakes his head.</p><p>“I should’ve stayed,” he murmurs. “I should’ve just dealt with it. It’s not like it mattered anyway.”</p><p>“Of course it fucking mattered,” Harry bursts, eyes shattering with tears. “It’s always fucking mattered.”</p><p>Zayn shrugs, but Liam’s hand finds his on the cushions and stills him.</p><p>“They’re right, Zee. You’ve always mattered.”</p><p>Zayn swallows.</p><p>“Yeah, I know, but -”</p><p>“No buts,” Louis gasps out, his entire body shuddering once before going completely limp, eyes dead like the grey sky as they meet Zayn’s. “No buts. We needed you, yeah, we fucking needed you. We’ll always fucking need you. But we need <em> you, </em> not a ghost or statue or picture. Just you. Just Zayn.”</p><p>Zayn feels the tears well up in his eyes and wipes at them furiously, wrenching his hand from Liam’s.</p><p>“I fucked up,” he rasps. “I fucked us all up. I ruined everything.”</p><p>Harry smiles.</p><p>“Nah,” he says. “You saved us.”</p><p>He’s wrong. Of course he’s wrong, because Zayn’s a fucking mess. He’s never saved anyone, most certainly not these dead boys putting all their faith in him just because they love who he used to be.</p><p>“Please stop acting like it was okay,” he whispers. “It wasn’t fucking okay. It will never be okay.”</p><p>Niall shrugs.</p><p>“It always was,” he answers. “We were killing you. You needed to leave to survive. We all get that, even if it hurts. Even if -”</p><p>“No,” Zayn breathes, feeling his heart constrict and then explode into a million tiny pieces. “No, you were my life support. You kept me here. I left you and then I fucking <em> killed myself.”</em></p><p>Zayn thought he knew silence.</p><p>Zayn was wrong.</p><p>Zayn didn’t know silence before this moment.</p><p>“What?” Liam asks. His voice is timid, horrified, and Zayn squeezes his eyes shut, trying to block it all out.</p><p>“I killed myself,” he whispers. “I couldn’t take it. My overdose, the drugs, they weren’t - it wasn’t an accident.”</p><p>Somebody’s crying. He thinks it’s Harry, but he can’t be sure. Everything around him is muted, beating like a heart as the world flickers out of color and into black and white.</p><p>“I don’t wanna be here,” he chokes out, tasting his own tears on his tongue. “I’ve never wanted to be here. I just - I stay here, for you. Because I love you. Because I fucking <em> love </em> you, and I’ll love you forever, and you need me. And I’ll do anything to make you happy.”</p><p>His eyes lock onto Louis’ and hold, his heart drowning in the storm he finds there.</p><p>
  <em>“Anything.”</em>
</p><p>There are no secrets anymore. Zayn wonders if they ever even had any in the first place.</p><p>“We love you,” Niall whispers, because they’re probably the only words he knows, and Zayn smiles, closing his eyes as Liam takes his hand.</p><p>“I know,” he says. “I’ve always known.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>someday soon your whole life’s gonna change</b>
</p><p>
  <b>you’ll miss the magic of these good old days</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Zayn’s love with his boys has grown from the rubble of fame into a beautiful garden of a million flowers, over time. They are steady and strong and everlasting, always returning no matter how many droughts or rainstorms try to tear them down.</p><p>Zayn’s love with Liam, however, has been there from the beginning, the single surviving flower in the midst of ruinous, scorched ground. Somehow, in the five of them’s blazing fire of a love, Zayn’s love for Liam remains a flood.</p><p>That love rains softly around them now as they lie facing each other on Liam’s bed, legs tangled and foreheads pressed together. It’s much too late to be awake now, but Zayn doesn’t sleep anymore and Liam’s restless. Besides, with his hands tangled in Liam’s, Zayn can’t really bring himself to care.</p><p>“I always kinda thought it was my fault, y’know?” Liam murmurs, his eyes closed. Zayn studies every inch of his face, wanting to remember this moment forever, even as his heart starts to burn with the implication of Liam’s words.</p><p>“Like, I know you and Louis fought the most, and I know you and Harry were always in some sort of limbo, and I know you and Niall were afraid to touch each other even when you needed it, but I always kinda thought it was my fault. Like I hadn’t loved you right, or maybe just not enough, and the longer it went on I started to think that maybe it was you who didn’t love me enough. And then I wondered why, even when everyone told me I was crazy.”</p><p>Zayn swallows down his tears and all the screams, keeping his voice quiet. They’ve had enough noise for a lifetime, he thinks.</p><p>“I loved you more than anything,” he says, as if it’s a secret. “I loved you more than Louis and Harry and Niall. I loved you more than the music and the tattoos and the art. I loved you more than all the stars in the sky, even ours.”</p><p>He presses his lips against Liam’s, if only for a moment. It’s all he can afford.</p><p>“It was myself I didn’t love enough.”</p><p>Liam huffs out a laugh. Zayn smiles, kissing him again. He can’t help it.</p><p>“You’re wrong, you know,” Liam says. “What you said before, you’re wrong. I think you’re stronger than all of us.”</p><p>Zayn shakes his head.</p><p>“I was a coward. You were always the brave one.”</p><p>Liam shrugs. He opens his beautiful brown eyes and steals Zayn’s breath with a smile and a kiss, brushing his thumb across the back of Zayn’s hand.</p><p>“We were all fucking terrified,” he whispers. “No matter what we did, no matter where we went, there was always something chasing us. I think that’s the thing about fame - it’s all splendor and stardust until the lights go out.”</p><p>Zayn smiles wryly.</p><p>“We are the quiet ones,” he recites, because they’re the only words he never forgets, and Liam kisses him.</p><p>“We are the strong ones,” he answers. “We survived.”</p><p>Zayn doesn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. Instead he leans in and kisses him until they both forget how they used to breathe.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>wish i didn’t think i had the answers</b>
</p><p>
  <b>wish i didn’t drink all of that glass first</b>
</p><p> </p><p>“So, Alexandria, huh?”</p><p>Zayn shrugs. The elephant isn’t something he’s ever had to explain, and out of everyone, he’s certainly never expected Niall to be the one who asked. Nonetheless, those bright blue eyes follow him with curiosity, no judgement in their gaze.</p><p>Back when Zayn slept, his dreams were haunted by irises of blue and green and brown. He’d run beneath amber skies, trying to escape tsunamis of cerulean as the olive grass hummed underneath his feet. Zayn doesn’t remember much of those dreams now, but he remembers how when the tsunami finally fell over him, it didn’t drown him.</p><p>Instead, he could feel the air flood his lungs. That night, he could finally breathe, awakening with a gasp and clutching his chest through his shirt, trying to feel his heart as it tried to crash through his ribs.</p><p>Harry’s letter had been waiting for him on the doorstep. Zayn packed his bags that morning.</p><p>There’s never been any doubt they’d end up here. The house, Zayn wouldn’t have guessed, but them together was always going to happen. That love is just never going to fade.</p><p>“Seriously, Zee,” Niall says, breaking Zayn from his spiralling thoughts. “Tell me about Alexandria.”</p><p>Zayn shrugs, not protesting when Niall’s fingers slip through his. He’s no longer afraid of touching him.</p><p>“She’s an elephant,” he says, and Niall snorts, taking her from Zayn’s hand.</p><p>“I know.” He smiles. “Where’d you get her?”</p><p>“Houston,” Zayn answers. “Liam gave her to me on stage. I guess I just couldn’t let her go.”</p><p>Niall hums, squeezing Zayn’s hand. His hands are soft, though his fingertips are calloused where they press into Zayn’s skin, leaving their little invisible marks. Zayn likes to think Niall holding his hand is how they claim each other, leaving signatures on one another’s bodies that will never be found, never be known.</p><p>“Why?” Niall asks. Zayn shrugs. He doesn’t really know.</p><p>“I was going to marry Liam, y’know?” At this, Niall’s hand loosens in his, but Zayn holds on, refusing to let go a second time. “We were going to settle down, have a family. I wanted a daughter, one that looked just like him with soft brown eyes and tangled amber hair and the sweetest smile you ever did see. I thought - I thought when we had her, we could name her Alexandria.”</p><p>Niall doesn’t say a word, staring at his feet as they scuff up the grass. Zayn doesn’t mind, watching him as he thinks, his fingers tight around Alexandria’s body.</p><p>“I’m sorry you never got to meet her,” is what Niall finally says, and Zayn blinks, not expecting that at all. He closes his eyes to stop the tears suddenly threatening to spill over, smiling even though he doesn’t feel like it.</p><p>That fantasy slipped from possibility a long time ago. Every day Zayn misses it less.</p><p>“I did meet her,” he murmurs, gesturing to Alexandria in Niall’s hands. “She’s right there, you see?”</p><p>Niall’s eyes are sad. He looks at Zayn as if he’s a dying patient, unaware his days are numbered.</p><p>“Zayn,” he whispers. Zayn kisses him, not wanting to talk about it.</p><p>“I have you now,” he says. “I have you now, and it doesn’t matter anymore. She doesn’t matter anymore.”</p><p>Niall thinks he’s lying, Zayn knows that. He also knows that just because Alexandria stopped mattering doesn’t mean he stopped wanting her.</p><p>He kisses Niall again, because he can and because he’s so tired of pretending he doesn’t need to. These are his boys, his soulmates, and their fire blazes in his chest no matter how hard he tries to put it out.</p><p>When he pulls away, he turns and waves at Liam, who stands in the midst of the overgrown weeds in their front garden. He can feel Niall’s eyes still on his face, searching his smile for any hint of a fracture, but Zayn’s spent too long painting this facade for it to just fall apart now.</p><p>From the vines and flowers, Liam waves back. He smiles, and Zayn’s heart burns, burns, burns.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>wish i made it to homecoming</b>
</p><p>
  <b>got up the courage to ask her</b>
</p><p> </p><p>And like all fires, theirs claims victims. It claws its way through their veins like acid and turns their hearts to ash, whenever it feels like it. Zayn has long since given up trying to stop it.</p><p>Today, Harry is the one Zayn watches the fire consume. It crawls up his arms like cracks of molten lava through igneous rock, eating Harry alive as he screams and screams and screams.</p><p>“You don’t understand, Zayn,” Harry’s saying now, eyes crazed as they lock onto Zayn’s. “I need, I <em> need </em> to cut, it just, I <em> need </em> to -”</p><p>“No, Hazza, you don’t,” Zayn answers sadly. Harry’s scars are raised and irritated, pink from the way he’s been scratching at them through his sleeves when he thinks they aren’t looking.</p><p>“I need -” Harry starts again, desperate. “I need my fix. We all have our fix, I need mine, I need -”</p><p>“You need to let it go, Harry,” Liam whispers, eyes melancholy as he holds Harry’s wrists in place as gently as he can. Harry thrashes in his hands, banging into the wall in his fit.</p><p>“I can’t,” Harry gasps. “I can’t, I -”</p><p>“God, Harry, aren’t we fucking enough for you?” Louis shouts from his spot by the window, hands shaking in their fists and eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. Niall’s face reddens with anger as he stomps across the room to Louis, shoving him back.</p><p>“<em>You </em> don’t get to talk about <em> enough, </em> you piece of shit. You’re the reason we’re even like this in the first place, you fucking -”</p><p>“Stop,” Zayn whispers. They won’t listen, he knows that, but he prays anyway. “Stop. All of you, stop.”</p><p>Liam is the only one who falls silent, keeping his eyes carefully on Harry. Louis and Niall are still shouting, but Zayn can’t hear them over the sound of his old heartbeat in his ears.</p><p>“Stop,” he says again. “Stop, please. Why can’t you stop? Why can’t we all just fucking stop?”</p><p>It’s too late for stupid questions like that.</p><p>“Maybe we were better off without each other, you fuckers!” Louis screams over everything, not seeming to care when Liam squeezes his eyes shut in an attempt to force down the panic. Harry continues to fight against Liam, bruises littering his pretty porcelain skin, and Zayn closes his eyes as Niall starts to cry, wishing he were anywhere but here.</p><p>“Maybe we should’ve all just fucking died,” Louis seethes. “Maybe then we could’ve been fucking happy. I wish I had never fucking met any of you.”</p><p>Zayn listens to his footsteps as they carry him out the door like gunshots. He can’t follow him.</p><p><em> I’ll do you one better, </em> his mind mutters. <em> I wish we were never fucking born. </em></p><p>It’s an empty thought, and not one he really means, but either way it doesn’t matter. In the end, while Zayn doesn’t believe they’ll ever really be happy with each other, he does believe that without them, the world would have crumbled a long time ago.</p><p>This world that’s spinning beneath them, it exists because they love each other. If even one of them leaves, their earth will crack in two.</p><p>And then in five, because that’s just how soulmates work.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>wish i would’ve gotten out of my shell</b>
</p><p>
  <b>wish i put the bottle back on that shelf</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Even when the fire calms, its embers go on burning. Zayn tends to them with gentle hands, hoping they’ll sleep soon.</p><p>Harry has finally collapsed, shaking against Liam as his cries slowly fade to sniffles. Liam has his hands pressed to Harry’s chest, breathing along with the beat of Harry’s heart, their eyes closed as Harry reaches for him, hands in Liam’s hair.</p><p>Their kisses are soft and silent, promises made with closed mouths and weak hands. Zayn tears his eyes from them after a moment, finding Louis in the wreckage, staring out the window at the moon as he mutters to himself. Though it’s cold, so cold they’re all shivering, Louis has taken his shirt off, letting the moon shine over his inked skin as he breathes in and out through chapped lips, eyes fluttering closed.</p><p>Niall stands then, and shuffles past Zayn for the bathroom with a soft-spoken <em> excuse me. </em>Zayn pushes himself up off the floor, following Niall into the only room with a light on.</p><p>Niall’s fingers are down his throat again. Nothing is happening, though, because Niall hasn’t really eaten anything in days. Zayn wonders if he’s starving - Zayn doesn’t eat either, but he doesn’t feel anything.</p><p>“Why are we all so fucked up?” Niall sobs, tears dripping into the toilet as he heaves into it, Zayn kneeling beside him. “What the fuck did we do to deserve this?”</p><p>Zayn shrugs. He has no answers, not anymore. All he can do is run his fingers through Niall’s hair while he tries in vain to empty his already hollow self.</p><p>“I wish we weren’t,” he says finally. “I wish we were perfect.”</p><p>Niall shudders, convulsing one last time before dropping back against Zayn’s chest, exhausted. As his eyes close, Zayn slides his fingers under Niall’s shirt, brushing his hands across scraped skin and bruised bone.</p><p>“I don’t,” Niall murmurs. His chest rises and falls beneath Zayn’s hands, but slowly, like a weak imitation of how it’s supposed to. “If we were perfect, I wouldn’t love you. I like loving you.”</p><p>Zayn hums, pressing a kiss to Niall’s forehead.</p><p>“We like loving you, too.”</p><p>It’s not exactly the truth, but Niall doesn’t need to know that. Zayn exists to take care of these four boys, and if that means lying, well.</p><p>He’s done worse in the name of love.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>wish i wouldn’t have worry</b>
</p><p>
  <b>about what other people thought</b>
</p><p>
  <b>and felt comfortable with myself</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Sleep comes slowly and fitfully. Niall is soft and pliant in Zayn’s arms, all too light in his hold. Ghosts may be easy to carry, but humans shouldn’t be.</p><p>He hasn’t been eating enough. Zayn knows this, and still he feels his heart drop at the thought, ignoring the way his mind points out his hypocrisy.</p><p>For Zayn, eating is no longer a necessity. For Niall, eating is a manifestation of joy and personality.</p><p>It takes a half hour just to carry him up two flights of stairs. Niall’s bedroom is cold, covered in notebook paper and pens and remnants of the others. His sheets are blue and fuzzy, stuffed animals littering the mattress. As Zayn tucks him in, his eyes are drawn to the glowstars on the ceiling, and how brightly they burn.</p><p>After Niall is taken care of, Zayn travels back down to the living room. There, he finds Harry and Louis slumped against each other, snoring softly. Their hands are tangled, almost like they’ve never come undone, and Zayn allows himself a single moment of weakness, letting the wanting seep into his chest like blood from a wound.</p><p>“Can I sleep with you tonight?”</p><p>Zayn nods, pressing back against Liam as his hands explore Zayn’s chest, curving gentle fingers around protruding ribs and a sunken stomach. His whisper in Zayn’s ear is mournful, a regretful lament of the good old days.</p><p>“We need help.”</p><p>Zayn huffs out a laugh in spite of himself, because that’s a funny statement to a dead man. Still, he nods and smiles like he agrees.</p><p>“Yeah,” he murmurs, reaching his arms back to run his fingers through Liam’s hair, messy and unkempt. It looks like him, like it belongs to him, which it never did back then. Back then, when everyone was looking at them and they felt invisible. Back then, when the world was alive and they were dying. Back then, when they loved each other like lifelines instead of afterlives.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says again, smiling when Liam kisses his neck. “Yeah, we do.”</p><p>It’s the truth, albeit a useless one - no one can help them now.</p><p>They’re on their own.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>rooftop open and the stars above</b>
</p><p>
  <b>moment frozen, sneaking out, and falling in love</b>
</p><p> </p><p>The moon is singing. Zayn is sure of it.</p><p>Her voice is low and raspy, crooning along to some song Zayn can’t quite recognize. Nonetheless, he hums with her, chiming in to the parts he remembers.</p><p>“I’m coming home, I’m coming home,” he mumbles, closing Liam’s door softly behind him. “Tell the world I’m coming home.”</p><p>He continues to sing even as he starts upstairs, climbing towards his sanctuary on the fifth floor. It seems so far away, but then again so did his boys.</p><p>“Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday. I know my kingdom awaits, have they forgiven my mistakes? I’m coming home, I’m coming home, tell the world I’m coming…”</p><p>He trails off on the fourth floor, glimpsing Harry and Louis tangled together on Louis’ bed. They weren’t there last time he checked, passed out in the living room, but now they’re awake and smiling, foreheads pressed together.</p><p>“Sorry about today,” Harry whispers, Louis’ hand in his. “Didn’t mean to lose it.”</p><p>“I don’t mind, Hazza,” Louis answers, smiling at him. “I never minded. Just want you. You and all your crazy.”</p><p>Harry grins, shuffling closer to kiss him. It’s short and sweet and perfect, the kind of kiss they used to have before they fell in love with the others and fucked everything up.</p><p>“I want your crazy too,” Harry murmurs when he pulls back, eyes drooping closed. Louis runs his fingers through Harry’s curls, a soft smile dancing across his face. “I want all of you, forever and ever and ever. I want…”</p><p>Louis kisses his forehead just once before closing his own eyes, leaning back against the pillows. He’s out like a light within minutes, the two of them breathing soundlessly into each other’s skin. Moonlight spills over them like a shield, as if no harm can come to them in her glow.</p><p>Zayn watches them, his heart beating slow and steady, until he forgets where he is. Then, he walks towards the bed as softly as he can, pulling the blankets over Harry and Louis’ still bodies and kissing each of their cheeks in a gentle goodnight.</p><p>“I made it home, I made it home,” Zayn murmurs, the moon harmonizing as well as she can. “Despite it all, I made it home. Let the sun shine upon all the places we went wrong. Can you love me again? You are still my only friends, but I made it home. I made it home. I will always come back…”</p><p>“We know.”</p><p>Zayn turns back, eyes wide as they meet Louis’ sleepy ones. Louis grins, slow like honey, and the sight makes something in Zayn’s heart burst, golden warmth leaking into his veins.</p><p>“Goodnight, Louis,” he manages, all his love caught in his throat, and Louis nods, closing his eyes again. He sinks back against Harry, drawing him closer and holding on tight.</p><p>“Night, Zaynie.”</p><p>As Zayn climbs the final flight of stairs to his room, he does his best to memorize every piece of those words - Louis’ lips around them, mostly. Not too often, but sometimes, in his most shameful moments, Zayn misses when he was allowed to kiss them.</p><p>Those days are long gone. Smiling wryly, Zayn thinks that most everything is too.</p><p>Still, his chest is warm beneath the cold blankets. His eyes are open in the bleak dark. His hands are gentle in the endless war.</p><p>He remembers his funeral was on a rainy day. He remembers how his family cried. He remembers the eulogies were long and meaningless. More than anything, he remembers the loneliness, the overwhelming sadness weighing down on his ghostly shoulders.</p><p>Beside him, Harry had stood tall, taking his hand.</p><p>“It will be alright,” he’d said. “The others will come around.”</p><p>Now, Zayn repeats it like an oath, letting it lull him to sleep.</p><p>
  <em> It will be alright. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It will be alright. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It will be alright. </em>
</p><p>When sleep comes, it is like death.</p><p>
  <em> The others will come around. </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <em> the door closed. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> i didn’t get the chance to say i love you, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> so i said it to the closed door. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> the words, spoken but unheard, fell to the floor, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> where they shattered like glass. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> everything is so fragile, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> and i love [them] so much. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> that, i think, is fragile too. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> - Dawn Kurtagich (The Dead House) </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>me, you and that futon</b>
</p><p>
  <b>we’d just begun</b>
</p><p>
  <b>on the grass dreaming</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Zayn categorizes their lives in snapshots, kept in a collage in his mind. They’re tangled together by strings and clothes pins, some blurry and some hazy and some clear, but always of them and their patchwork little family.</p><p>They remain that way. When the space between their bodies grows too wide, Zayn pulls them back to him by the strings of those photographs, charting their smiles and tears onto the maps in his mind, ensuring he can always take care of them.</p><p>No one will take care of him, but that’s okay. Zayn knows enough to know that dead people don’t need to be taken care of.</p><p>It’s cold today. Outside, the wind blows dying leaves across their field of a yard, some of them getting caught in the empty branches of the rose bushes in their garden.</p><p>The irises have died too. The bluebells wilt and wither and bloom on nonsensical days, leaving and then returning as quickly as the weather changes. They are Zayn’s favorites, though.</p><p>Somehow, even in this seemingly endless winter, the sunflowers and forget-me-nots are still alive. The fire has not killed them, not yet.</p><p>“They’ll all die eventually.”</p><p>Zayn turns from the window, offering Harry the truest smile he can, which is mostly a lie. Harry frowns, reaching out for Zayn’s clenched hands.</p><p>He pulls Zayn’s fingers apart gently, painstakingly, like he’s painting a doll’s face. Then, he weaves them through his own, leaning in to kiss Zayn softly. He tastes like thrift stores and gravestones, and Zayn loves him so much.</p><p>“I know,” he murmurs. “Everything must go, and all that. I know.”</p><p>Harry hums, pulling back just enough to wrap Zayn in his arms. Zayn hooks his chin over Harry’s shoulder, watching Liam as he sways to NF’s <em> Trauma </em>from the record player and smiling at Niall and Louis as they dance stupidly in between lazy kisses filled with smoke.</p><p>“I wish we knew how to move on,” he whispers. Harry kisses his neck, brushing a hand through Zayn’s hair.</p><p>“I wish we knew how to rest in peace,” he answers, breaking away to kiss Zayn again. “I wish we knew how to let go.”</p><p>Zayn shakes his head. His fingers hold on to Harry’s hips desperately, searching for any semblance of reality. He needs Alexandria, but he left her upstairs.</p><p>“I wish we could just stay,” he says. “I wish we could just stay here for eternity. Just you, and me, and them. Just us.”</p><p>Harry smiles. He kisses Zayn once more, then lets his hands drop and walks away, pulling Liam into some sort of strange waltz that’s not really a dance but isn’t not one either. And Zayn is alone again.</p><p>The thing is, Zayn knows dead people don’t need to be taken care of. Still, sometimes, when it’s quiet, he thinks it might be nice.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>figuring out who i was</b>
</p><p>
  <b>those good old days</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Their lives are boring now.</p><p>Before, they did whatever they wanted and met millions of people and experimented with everything in the world there was. They were loud and obnoxious and immature, the kids that no one would dare tell to grow up.</p><p>They’re older now, and it’s boring. They live in predictability, in routine and domesticity, and it’s boring. Their joys are record players and gel pens and hot cocoa, and it’s boring.</p><p>Zayn is the happiest he’s ever been.</p><p>It’s slow going. There are as many bad days as good ones, and he still kinda hates himself and the way he breathes, but he’s happy. He knows things now, knows the truths and the lies and their hearts, and that’s all he’s ever really needed.</p><p>The record player hums, though it’s all too late for music. He should be asleep.</p><p>
  <em> If you wait for me… </em>
</p><p>He’s still lonely. He misses Perrie, and he misses his family, and he misses Taylor, just like Harry does.  He misses his friends, and he misses Gigi, and he misses his old life, because nostalgia is a powerful sickness and no matter how unhappy he was back then there will always be a part of him that misses it.</p><p>Misery is not the worst thing he’s ever felt.</p><p>
  <em> Then I’ll come back to you… </em>
</p><p>Safety is a thing of the past. They’re dead, but still, a pandemic threatens to kill them all over again. When they go out, the streets are barren and the stores are empty, and there are masks everywhere, even on the skeletons. The world’s end doesn’t look like Zayn’s always pictured it - he thought it’d be faster.</p><p>In the movies, it always happens in an instant. The snap of someone’s fingers, and everything burns away to ash.</p><p>Zayn, he’s been burning for years. He’s still here.</p><p>
  <em> On my own… </em>
</p><p>Then again, he supposes the world has always been ending. This is just the end of the end.</p><p>To think, he left it five years ago. To think, his grave will crumble away. To think, everyone will end up here, on their doorstep.</p><p>
  <em> I’ve been in love with you forever… </em>
</p><p>His boys are his constants now. Pinched between his fingers, Alexandria seems to nod, and Zayn smiles at her, imagining her voice in his head.</p><p>He’ll never have kids of his own. It’s the only thing about life he’s sad to have missed out on. He’d always kinda thought he and Liam would have some together one day.</p><p>
  <em> Is what I wish I would’ve told them… </em>
</p><p>This is better, he supposes. An ambiguous ending is better than a sad one.</p><p>Happiness, true happiness, the kind of happiness that <em> lasts, </em> that may not be in the cards for him anymore. But Zayn can live with just being hopeful for the rest of his life if that’s what it takes - long days, endless nights, the five of them stuck in a loop of supernova and relapse for the rest of eternity.</p><p>
  <em> If you wait for me, then I’ll come back to you… </em>
</p><p>This star is his home. It may not be heaven, but it’s as close as he gets.</p><p>
  <em> On my own. </em>
</p><p>He’ll take it.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>i wish somebody would have told me, babe</b>
</p><p>
  <b>someday these will be the good old days</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes Zayn has to remind himself that they won’t end just because the world will.</p><p>If anything, they’ll outlive the world for a billion years. Beneath their feet, the ground cracks like an eggshell, but when they look down into the ravines, eyes stare back up at them.</p><p>They’re bloodshot and yellow, like a monster’s. This world isn’t real, Zayn knows, just a culmination of their dreams and nightmares, but he still watches where he steps, just in case.</p><p>He thinks he’s going insane.</p><p>“What’re you thinking about?”</p><p>Zayn startles, dropping his fork to the floor with a clatter. He offers Liam a shaky smile in apology, shrugging.</p><p>“Nothing,” he answers. “What about you?”</p><p>Liam shakes his head, tugging Zayn into a kiss. His smile is soft when he pulls away, handing Zayn a piece of bacon from his plate.</p><p>“Here. Eat.”</p><p>Zayn smiles, taking the bacon even though he isn’t hungry. Just like Niall, he doesn’t eat much anymore, though Niall has finished half his plate. Still, he’s stiff in his chair, glancing at the bathroom every now and then, and Zayn knows it’ll only be so long before he has to follow Niall in there and brush his hair back while he pukes.</p><p>When it’s cold, Harry likes to press his hands against Zayn’s chest and count his ribs like freckles, kissing each one at least ten times. Louis will watch this from his spot beneath the window, his eyes vacant and sad, his head lolling. Zayn likes to pretend that Louis is staring right through him, hoping that maybe he’s finally faded into a real ghost like he should have years ago.</p><p>Now, Harry smiles at him from across the table, Louis asleep on his shoulder. Zayn wants to kiss him, but he’s too far away, and Liam won’t let him get up until he’s eaten at least a little bit more, he knows.</p><p>They say he’s sick, that he has to get better. That’s probably true - Zayn’s ribs are nearly stabbing through his skin he’s so thin. But he doesn’t care. His chest is warm, his boys are all here, and he’s fine.</p><p>He’s fine.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>all the love you won’t forget</b>
</p><p>
  <b>and all these reckless nights you won’t regret</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Somehow people seem to think death means peace or torture. Either heaven or hell, good or bad, paradise or prison.</p><p>That’s not what death is. Death is just the beginning of another life, except this one doesn’t let you run away. None of them can ever leave this house outside of a few towns when groceries are running low, not that the others know it. They have been forced together for eternity by some dick of an ethereal being Zayn can’t see, because someone out there decided they were soulmates and thought things had been left unfinished.</p><p>So here they are together, seeking the answers to all the questions in their heads alone.</p><p>“I was so fucking mad at you.”</p><p>The record player goes quiet along with the rest of them, all turning towards Louis, who has his head thrown back against the window, staring at the ceiling. His hands keep shaking, and Zayn’s pretty sure the voices have gotten louder. Zayn knows the drugs were bad for Louis, but sometimes he wonders if this is worse.</p><p>“I was so fucking mad at you,” Louis says again. “When you left. I don’t think I’ve ever hated anyone more, I - I hated you so much I couldn’t breathe.”</p><p>Of course, Zayn already knows this. Still, it hurts like hell to hear.</p><p>“I hated that you didn’t love us enough. I hated that you didn’t try. I hated that you didn’t call, even when you promised you would every day.”</p><p>His voice breaks, tears slipping down his cheeks and onto the floor.</p><p>“I hated you so fucking much… because I understood.”</p><p>Zayn stiffens. Liam isn’t even touching him anymore, but Zayn still feels like he’s in a cage, overwhelmed by the incredibly dangerous need to leave, to get out, to kill himself all over again. Fuck being clean, fuck being better, he can’t handle this -</p><p>“I understood, Zaynie.” Louis is looking at him now, eyes drowning in devastation. He’s as beautiful as Zayn has ever seen him. “I understood, because I wanted to leave too. Every show, every interview, every song, every <em> day… </em> I always wanted to leave.”</p><p>Zayn swallows down the tears. He can’t cry, not now. Not yet.</p><p>“I was too scared to leave. Didn’t wanna give up just yet. But I was done, we were done, I knew that. I just… you were so brave, Zaynie, and I hated that I couldn’t be as brave as you. I hated myself more than I hated anyone, even you, because I <em> couldn’t </em> hate you. I just loved you, even when I shouldn’t’ve. I loved you so fucking much, and I couldn’t let go.”</p><p>Louis lowers his eyes from Zayn’s to his hands, shaking in his lap.</p><p>“I just wanted you back.”</p><p>Zayn watches him dissolve into tears, too weak to move. He wants to go over there, to pull Louis into his arms like he used to, but he doesn’t. He’s still frozen on the couch, staring in horror as his best friend, as his <em> soulmate </em> shatters into a million pieces.</p><p>“I always kinda thought you were coming back,” Harry murmurs from the corner. Huddled next to Niall, he looks so small, like a child lost in the woods. So fragile, a castle of cards just waiting to be blown over.</p><p>“Yeah,” Niall whispers. “Me too.”</p><p>“We loved you,” Liam says, and then Zayn is crying, clawing at himself, screaming into the void that this isn’t fair, it was never fair, <em> why him why him why him </em>-</p><p>“Just <em> stay,</em>” Harry rasps, crawling forward to drag Zayn into his arms. “You don’t have to be perfect, or beautiful, or nice. You don’t even have to be whole, just <em> stay.</em>”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Zayn blubbers, trying desperately to breathe as Niall and Liam join them, wrapping their arms around him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sor -”</p><p>“I forgive you,” Liam interrupts, kissing his jaw. Harry nods, Niall humming in agreement beside him.</p><p>“I forgive you,” Harry says, smiling kindly. He kisses Zayn on the forehead, then on the nose, squeezing him gently.</p><p>“I forgive you,” Niall echoes, pressing his lips to Zayn’s cheek, closing his eyes as he rests his head on Zayn’s shoulder. They are warm and safe and his, and Zayn will be okay.</p><p>He waits for the fourth voice. He waits for the last point of the star to relapse. He waits for Louis, breathing in and breathing out as slowly as he can, holding it until his chest burns.</p><p>But his answer is only silence, and soon the apologies fade into silence, the last remnants of a battle that was lost from the start. Zayn wants to be mad, but all he feels is empty.</p><p>He was never going to come home from this war whole.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>someday soon your whole life’s gonna change</b>
</p><p>
  <b>you’ll miss the magic of these good old days</b>
</p><p> </p><p>The others are asleep, and outside, the flowers are blooming. It snows, the wind blowing hard and biting, and from the ground sprout roses and sunflowers and forget-me-nots. Zayn wonders who here is haunted by flowers, because it certainly isn’t him.</p><p>“I don’t hate you.”</p><p>Zayn turns around. Louis is standing in the doorway, fists clenched. The room suddenly seems so small, with only the two of them left awake.</p><p>“I know,” Zayn says. Louis shakes his head, taking a step closer.</p><p>“No, you don’t,” he answers. He swallows. “I don’t hate you.”</p><p>Zayn tries for a smile, but he knows it’s worthless. His eyes are already wet, and he probably looks like a psycho.</p><p>Not that far off from the truth, at least.</p><p>Louis steps closer, jerking his hands open and outwards.</p><p>“I don’t hate you.”</p><p>Zayn backs away. This is stupid.</p><p>“I know,” he says again.</p><p>Louis steps closer.</p><p>Zayn’s back hits the wall.</p><p>“I don’t hate you.”</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>“I don’t hate you.”</p><p>Zayn squeezes his eyes shut, fingers so tight around the window pane his knuckles are white.</p><p>“Stop.”</p><p>One more step.</p><p>Gentle hands on his face.</p><p>Breath on his lips.</p><p>“I don’t hate you.”</p><p>Zayn <em> breaks. </em></p><p>Louis kisses with everything in him. It’s like trying to swim in an ocean during a hurricane, except Zayn knows he’s safe when Louis holds him, their tears mixing together on his lips.</p><p>“I love you,” Louis whispers, holding Zayn up now. Zayn’s heart is made of stone in Louis’ hands, but still it threatens to crumble under the weight of those words, hanging in the air like nooses.</p><p>Zayn steps forward into one, the rope soft against his neck. It tightens, but Zayn is unafraid, no longer running.</p><p>“I forgive you,” Louis murmurs, and Zayn lets Louis’ words kill him.</p><p>Outside, bluebells and irises start to grow, their stems intertwined.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>never thought we’d get old, maybe we’re still young</b>
</p><p>
  <b>may we always look back</b>
</p><p>
  <b>and think it was better than it was</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Something in Zayn has healed overnight. He can tell, because when he wakes up on the living room floor, cradled against Louis, there’s sunshine spilling in through the windows, and it hasn’t been anything other than grey and rain and nothing for months.</p><p><em> folklore’s</em> on the record player again. <em> august, </em>Zayn thinks, watching through hooded eyes as Harry pulls Liam around the room in some sort of stumbling, happy dance. Niall watches them too, curled in the rocking chair in the corner with a smile.</p><p>They look so <em> okay, </em> and Louis is warm against him. Zayn feels the contentment seep into his bones, long forgotten but still familiar, and hums when Louis kisses his neck.</p><p>“Mornin’, Zaynie,” he murmurs. Zayn smiles, leaning back so Louis can kiss him on the mouth, all soft and lazy. Something warm pools in his stomach, his knees weak, and he thanks a million gods that he’s not standing right then, instead laying back against Louis’ chest.</p><p>“That’s new,” Liam says, but he’s smiling. Harry snorts, kissing his cheek, and Niall grins, shaking his head.</p><p>“Not really. Those two were always crazy about each other.”</p><p>Louis’ smile is like a sunbeam, one that’s tainted by smokey breath and chapped lips, but god, if he isn’t beautiful. Zayn kisses his jaw, because he can, because they finally got there, and smiles.</p><p>“Crazy, yeah, maybe,” Harry teases, laughing when Liam blows a raspberry on his face. Niall snickers, curling in on himself in his pink sweater and grey sweatpants, eyes twinkling.</p><p>“Aren’t we all?” He says, and Louis grins into Zayn’s skin.</p><p>“Obviously,” he answers, then kisses Zayn again.</p><p>The fire in him burns, burns, burns, and Zayn has never been so happy.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>maybe these are the moments</b>
</p><p>
  <b>maybe i’ve been missing what it’s about</b>
</p><p> </p><p>The fields are filled with sunflowers. It wasn’t like that last night, but Zayn can feel it in his bones when he touches the ground; Harry is happy, and so the sunflowers are here.</p><p>His hands feel empty without Alexandria to hold on to, but Louis fills those spaces with his fingers, and he is real. Around Zayn, the sunflowers sway in the breeze, and he watches with a smile as Harry weaves them into flowercrowns, giggling as he places one on his head.</p><p>They are ridiculous, and Zayn loves them.</p><p>Liam is humming, his eyes closed as he dances with Niall, their hands clasped tight together. Niall’s eyes are shining and he’s smiling, laughing when Liam twirls him around. He crashes back into Liam’s chest and kisses him hard, and fireworks erupt in Zayn’s stomach at the sight.</p><p>In his head, he sings along to the song Liam hums, smiling when Louis kisses him.</p><p>
  <em> You really, really know me, the future and the old me, all of the mazes and the madness in my mind… </em>
</p><p>When their dance is done, the sky gives them uproarious applause, and though Liam jumps at the thunder, Niall holds him steady, brushing his fingers though Liam’s hair. The rain comes pouring down, and Harry is laughing, loud and bright, spinning around and screaming.</p><p>
  <em> You really, really love me, you know me and you love me, and it’s the kind of thing I always hoped I’d find… </em>
</p><p>Louis grins, untangling his hands from Zayn’s to press them to Harry’s hips, holding him in place for a kiss. They are soaked through their clothes and Zayn can see their skeletons, their insides and outs, and though he’s alone, something inside him has finally stopped aching.</p><p>
  <em> Always thought I was hard to love til you made it seem so easy, seem so easy… </em>
</p><p>Behind the clouds, the sun is shining. Zayn can’t quite see it, because the rain is thick and cold, but the sun is there. For the first time in nearly six years, Zayn can see the sun, and his entire body <em> sings. </em></p><p>
  <em> Touch me til I find myself in a feeling, tell me with your hands that you’re never leaving… </em>
</p><p>The war still rages on around them. Zayn’s bones are stabbing through his skin. He can see Liam shaking at the thunder, and Niall looking a little thin. Harry’s scarred wrists rest on Louis’ hunched shoulders, and all their eyes are still a bit dull. But the sun is shining, the sun is <em> there, </em> and Zayn can see the end.</p><p>
  <em> Always thought I was hard to love til you made it seem so easy, seem so easy… </em>
</p><p>Life awaits them, when they reach that golden light. They will live again, no longer ghosts, when they touch the sun. The world will finally exhale, when they finally make their way home.</p><p>Zayn knows this, no matter what doubts he faces from here. This, and only this, he knows.</p><p>Death could never part them, because death could never kill them.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>been scared of the future</b>
</p><p>
  <b>thinking about the past</b>
</p><p>
  <b>while missing out on now</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Taylor’s <em> folklore </em>seems to always be playing on the downstairs record player. Zayn would assume it just keeps magically migrating back there, except he spends his nights wandering and has seen how Harry always puts it back on before bed, swaying in the moonlight with a sick smile on his face and a ghost in his arms.</p><p>Harry misses her, Zayn knows he does. They all do, but Harry <em> more </em> somehow.</p><p>Now, Zayn watches from the doorway as Harry pulls Camila Cabello’s <em> Romance </em> from the record player, replacing it with <em> folklore. </em>Patiently, he waits until Harry finishes his dance, eventually crashing into Zayn’s arms.</p><p>“Bedtime?” He asks, eyes wide and voice small, and he looks so young. So innocent, so unaware, so untouched. Zayn brushes his hand across Harry’s cheek, kissing him soundly before pulling him up the stairs.</p><p>Liam follows, emerging from his bedroom and taking Louis’ hand when he comes from the kitchen. Zayn leads them to Harry’s door, where Niall is already waiting, wrapped in a blanket and ready to thread his fingers through Zayn’s when they reach him.</p><p>“Sleeping in Harry’s room tonight then?” He whispers in Zayn’s ear, and Zayn shrugs, kissing Niall’s cheek. He helps the others into bed and covers them in blankets, watching with a smile as they yawn and close their eyes, curling into each other.</p><p>“We’re gonna sleep here every night, from now on,” he answers. “Here, in our bedroom, with the windows open. Because…”</p><p>Niall smiles sleepily, pulling Zayn down onto the bed next to him. His eyes are blue and as beautiful as the rest of him, like an ocean Zayn could drown in, and Zayn loves him.</p><p>“Because it’s about time, huh?” Niall mutters. “About time.”</p><p>Zayn smiles. He waits until all the others fall asleep before he lets himself start to slip away, surprised by how easy sleep comes.</p><p>This is not new. This is not strange. If anything, this is normalcy at last.</p><p>In the morning, they’d always forget. Shove it down, hold it tight, cage it up. No more kisses, no more touching, no more love.</p><p>They won’t forget now. Zayn won’t let them.</p><p>Downstairs, Taylor sings. Outside, the moon shines. Safe in the arms of his boys, Zayn sleeps.</p><p>In the sky, a single star twinkles.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>we’ve come so far, i guess i’m proud</b>
</p><p>
  <b>and i ain’t worried about the wrinkles around my smile</b>
</p><p> </p><p>“Wake up. Come on, Zaynie, wake up.”</p><p>Zayn comes to from the blackness to gold, Liam’s eyes staring right into his. He smiles, kissing Liam once and only once before rolling out of the bed, taking his hand and following him downstairs.</p><p>The front door is open. Harry’s always liked it better that way, though none of them can quite figure out why.</p><p>On the steps, Niall has his head on Harry’s shoulder, their hands intertwined. Louis sits on the other side of the front steps, threading his fingers through Zayn’s as he settles beside him, Liam in between him and Harry.</p><p>The five of them keep their hands clasped, watching the sun bleed orange and pink into yellow, alighting the sky with molten gold. The record player is still playing <em> folklore, </em>Taylor’s voice soft and steady, and Zayn strains to keep his eyes open, wanting to preserve this memory as best he can.</p><p>“I love you,” Louis murmurs, his eyes caught on the wide open sky, and something chained down in Zayn’s chest is set free. He laughs, loud and bright, and hopes that their answering smiles will last.</p><p>“We love you too,” he says. Louis grins, and Zayn kisses him.</p><p>They were always supposed to end up here.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>i’ve got some scars, i’ve been around</b>
</p><p>
  <b>i’ve felt some pain, i’ve seen some things</b>
</p><p>
  <b>but i’m here now</b>
</p><p> </p><p>The thing about happy endings is that they aren’t endings. Life goes on after the storybook closes, and just because nobody’s wondering what happened doesn’t mean nothing happened. For all Zayn knows, Cinderella got a divorce six months after her wedding.</p><p>And that’s the thing - no matter how happy they get, they’ll never have a happy ending. They’ll keep on existing, together or not, and Zayn knows that there’s nothing he can do to ensure their future.</p><p>Promises can break. Minds can change. Love can fade.</p><p>All they can do is keep fighting. And still, nothing is guaranteed.</p><p>Zayn realizes this on a Monday, when he hears someone scream from upstairs and finds himself standing with the others, staring down at Harry on the bathroom floor, a razor in his bloody hands.</p><p>“Harry,” Louis breathes, and sinks to his knees. Harry just stares, letting Louis take the razor from his hands and toss it away. Zayn is the one who throws it in the trash, taking Niall and Liam’s hands and squeezing hard.</p><p>
  <em> I am here. </em>
</p><p>“Why?” Louis whispers. Niall starts to cry, so Zayn pulls him closer, unclasping their hands so he can run his fingers through Niall’s hair, pressing a kiss to his temple. “Why, Hazza? Why are you still -”</p><p>“I’m not happy,” Harry rasps. His eyes are dead and hollow, like a ghost’s. Zayn tells himself that’s because they are, and not for any other reason. “I thought we were it, my fix, but I’m still not happy. It still hurts. I thought maybe… I thought it might be easier, for us. If I was gone. If I left.”</p><p>Louis shakes his head. He holds Harry’s hands like they’re glass, like they’re treasures, and kisses his knuckles, pulling back with bloodstained lips.</p><p>“Of course we’re not happy,” Louis says, softly. “We’re broken and fucked-up and unhealthy. I hear voices and Liam can’t breathe and Niall empties himself and Zayn doesn’t sleep and you, you hurt everywhere. We’re not the same as before, yeah.”</p><p>He looks down at their intertwined hands. A smile flits across his face, a shadow of the past, and he’s crying. Zayn loves him, and wants to tell him so, but keeps his mouth shut, knowing better.</p><p>“We used to love the sunshine,” Louis murmurs, Harry’s eyes now caught on him like a light, unable to look away. “Now it makes us sad. We used to love to sing. Now it hurts. We used to be flying. Now we’ve crashed. We’re not happier people by any means, but we are better ones. We <em> are </em> better.”</p><p>“How?” Harry asks, voice hoarse. Niall whimpers, and Zayn shushes him, squeezing Liam’s hand again. Louis smiles, looking up to meet Harry’s eyes.</p><p>“We love each other,” he answers. “Love doesn’t fix everything. You’re right. And maybe today is a bad day. But there are so many happy days. Like when we dance, and when we sleep, and when we cook. It’s not easy, but it’s ours. And we wouldn’t be complete without you, Hazza.”</p><p>His smile bursts into a grin, a firework of emotion. Zayn feels the tears start to pool in his eyes, but holds them back. He can’t lose control, not when they’re so close.</p><p>“You’re our soulmate, Harry,” Louis says. “We love you.”</p><p>And Harry cracks, gasping for breath through sobs that shake his whole brittle body, and they hold him. Harry breaks, screaming as loudly as he can at the walls, and they kiss him. Harry shatters, crying for a life long gone and forever missed, and they love him.</p><p>Harry grieves, and they grieve with him.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>those good old days</b>
</p><p>
  <b>you don’t know what you’ve got</b>
</p><p>
  <b>til it goes, til it’s gone</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Everyone knows the world is ending. They’re all trapped here, alone and wandering, no matter if the world keeps spinning or not. The universe is wide and dark and unknown, but sometimes Zayn thinks they’d be better off if they ran right into it, no regard for themselves or their lives. Then, at least, they might end staring at the stars.</p><p>The record player is still, and they are quiet. Harry and Louis are tucked together on the couch, the whispers between them too quiet for even Zayn to hear. They smile into each other’s skin and hair, looking every bit the part of soulmates millions believe them to be.</p><p>Niall has stopped crying. He sniffles every now and then, but mostly stares at Louis and Harry with blank eyes, his hand in Liam’s. Zayn wants to help him, but he doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know how to do much of anything lately, to be honest.</p><p>Every day, he wanders closer to the center of their star. And every day, he pays the price for his stupid bravery, losing bits and pieces of his memory. Now, all he’s left with is the knowledge that they love him, and the feeling in his chest that says he loves them the same.</p><p>Liam kisses his head. Zayn offers him a smile, fingers tightening around Alexandria’s ear, and presses a kiss to his cheek.</p><p>“I know we’re stuck here,” he murmurs. “I know it’s scary. And I know we’re fucked up beyond repair. I think we all know that.”</p><p>He looks up from Alexandria’s empty black eyes into theirs, something warm pooling in his stomach. He smiles, the sight sad and twisted, and takes Liam’s hand.</p><p>“Maybe Liam will hide sometimes, but he’ll always come back. Maybe Louis will shut us out sometimes, but he’ll always come back. Maybe Niall will lose himself sometimes, but he’ll always come back. Maybe Harry will fall apart, but he’ll always come back.”</p><p>In his head, Zayn can hear a million voices. They swarm together like wasps in a prison cell, attacking him from all sides and leaving no escape but cold, lonely death.</p><p>Zayn lets them hurt him. He takes their barbs, their stings, their hatred everywhere, knowing that the scars will stay with him forever. He lets them, and he doesn’t mind.</p><p>“Maybe I’ll run away,” he says, and shrugs. “But I’ll always come back. Because that’s what we do, we come back. We come back, and we love each other.”</p><p>“We relapse,” Niall answers, and Zayn smiles.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says. “We’ll relapse forever.”</p><p>Louis snorts. His hands shake on Harry’s hips, but he doesn’t let go.</p><p>“Probably.”</p><p>Harry grins, like the sun coming out from behind the clouds, and Liam kisses Zayn and Niall laughs and the world is ending but they aren’t, never again.</p><p>No matter what happens, they will <em> always </em> come back.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>you don’t know what you’ve got</b>
</p><p>
  <b>til it goes, til it’s gone</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Sunset comes and <em> Good Old Days </em>plays on every record player. Harry is dancing with Taylor’s ghost in the kitchen, and Louis is watching him, lying with his back on the floor and his legs against the window. They’re smiling, and Zayn loves them.</p><p>Niall is sitting on the stairs, scribbling furiously on a pad of paper. He doesn’t look up even when Zayn ruffles his hair and kisses his cheek as he passes by. Liam is staring out of the fourth floor window, wrapped in one of his old hoodies that now smells like Louis and playing with one of the many soccer balls that litter Louis’ floor.</p><p>Zayn wanders past them all, making his way up every step to his room on the fifth floor. He loves his room because it’s home, because it’s his, because it touches the sky. Every night, he can reach out and feel the stars on his fingertips before he draws them on the ceiling.</p><p>His walls are completely filled, no room left. He could paint over some of the older ones, but they’re all of his memories, and he doesn’t want to lose a single one of those. He’s lived a million lifetimes, he’s sure, but nothing could compare to this one.</p><p>His boys’ faces are young, their eyes twinkling. Beside those sketches are paintings of tears and screams, and below those are blushes and smiles. The map of Zayn’s mind is plain and colorful, filled with every expression these beautiful boys have ever had.</p><p>Over his bed there is scrawled a poem, one that he can never quite recite. Still, it is written on his heart and in the stars, in every past and future he has; it is what he holds on to, when he can’t find their hands anymore.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> you ask if i heard your heart breaking. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> i ask if you heard mine. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> you say you miss your home. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> i say we are right here. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> you ask why i left. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> i say i love you. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> there are three things </em>
</p><p>
  <em> that cannot long be hidden. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> your sun, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> my moon, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> our truth. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> you say you love me. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> i ask why. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>It is his soul. It is his heart. It is his life, and he will hand it to them eyes open. He will let them tear it to shreds, he will let them drown it in acid. He will let them burn it.</p><p><em> i burn for you, </em> Zayn adds, in the lightest brush of pencil. <em> i will love you for infinity, and i burn for you. </em></p><p>Outside, infinity stretches on. In his bedroom, Zayn catches fire.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>i wish somebody would have told me, babe</b>
</p><p>
  <b>someday these will be the good old days</b>
</p><p> </p><p>“You know, I wrote every single one for you.”</p><p>They don’t look at Zayn when he says it, and he doesn’t look at them. He thinks he prefers it that way - out of all of them, he’s always been the one who hated to be looked at the most.</p><p>“Every song, I wrote it for you. All the happy ones, all the sad ones, all the angry ones, they were all for you. Sometimes one of you, sometimes two, sometimes three or four, but always for you. Without any doubt, I wrote them for you.”</p><p>Zayn has written countless songs, no matter what made it onto an album. They live in his bones, are inked into his skin, and he lives and breathes the words he’s written for these four boys, pouring his life and love and soul into every note just for the hope that they’d hear. That they’d understand.</p><p>“We wrote all of ours for you too, Olivia,” Louis says, because that name still follows Zayn around even after all these years. “You know that.”</p><p>Zayn squeezes his eyes shut, his fingers curling into fists under the table. He shrugs, swallowing down every apology he doesn’t need to say.</p><p>“Of course I know that,” he says instead. “Of course, yeah. I was just saying.”</p><p>Liam’s hand is gentle on his back. From across the table, Harry speaks, his voice slow and soft.</p><p>“Thank you, is what we meant,” he murmurs, shooting Louis a <em> look. </em> “Thank you, and we love you.”</p><p>Zayn chokes out a laugh. The words are empty, but still, he takes them to heart and locks them there, hoping this time they’ll stay.</p><p>“Yeah,” Niall says quietly. Zayn opens his eyes onto Niall’s mostly empty plate, and from there they flick down to Zayn’s own, untouched. “We love you.”</p><p>Zayn shakes his head, blinking back the tears. He knows that.</p><p>“I love you too,” he answers, trying for a smile. Liam kisses him, and Louis takes his hand.</p><p>“We understood, Zaynie,” he says. “It just took us awhile. But we understood. We understand.”</p><p>Zayn closes his eyes, telling himself he believes them. For better or worse, Zayn believes them.</p><p>He has to.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>all the love you won’t forget</b>
</p><p>
  <b>and all these reckless nights you won’t regret</b>
</p><p> </p><p>They change with the wind and sky, breezing along like leaves until they get snagged back by branches from the past. Still, sure enough, they set themselves free as the seasons pass by, one tree at a time.</p><p>It’s late now. Shooting stars fall outside, and Louis is by the window as usual, counting them. Niall strums along to <em> folklore </em>on the guitar, his eyes closed as he rocks back and forth.</p><p>Harry stays curled into Liam’s chest, smiling at nothing. He’s staring at the scars on his arms, and Zayn watches him until it becomes apparent he won’t try anything. Liam, for his part, remains quiet, tapping out a gentle beat on Harry’s thigh.</p><p>Zayn holds Alexandria in his lap, listening to Louis mutter numbers and the occasional curse, battling the voices in his head. Alexandria is soft beneath his hands, warm and familiar, and Zayn keeps rubbing circles into her ears, staring into her deep  dark eyes until his vision blurs.</p><p>He doesn’t know what he’s looking for. All he knows is he hasn’t found it.</p><p>“Would you have come back?” Harry asks, soft and sweet. “If I hadn’t asked you to?”</p><p>His lips are strawberry red, and Zayn wants to kiss him, but doesn’t. Instead he shrugs, turning back to Alexandria and smiling.</p><p>“Yes,” he says. “Eventually.”</p><p>Liam tilts his head to the side, as if he wasn’t expecting that. Which would be stupid, considering all they’ve been through. His eyes stay locked on Zayn’s even as Harry kisses his jaw with a smile.</p><p>“Really?” He asks, and Zayn shrugs again, a soft smile stretching across his face.</p><p>“Yeah,” he answers, eyes flicking around the room to Niall and Louis, who watch him with curious and bloodshot eyes, looking so much like the ghosts haunting Zayn’s every thought. “Yeah, of course.”</p><p>Louis considers him for a moment, then turns back to the window, taking a drag from an imaginary cigarette in between his two fingers. He smiles wryly, licking his chapped lips.</p><p>“Mmm,” he mutters. “We believe you.”</p><p>Zayn’s heart stutters in his chest. He tries to say he loves them, but that’s not what comes spilling out of his carefully constructed smile.</p><p>“I would. I would do anything you asked me to. I would end. I would exist. I would…” He swallows. “I would leave.”</p><p>Niall shrugs, his eyes falling back to his guitar. The notes he plays are out of tune, like an old lullaby trapped in a music box.</p><p>“Just stay,” he says, softly. “Just stay.”</p><p>And finally, Zayn lets his roots sink into the ground and tangle, beautiful purple irises breaking through the dirt and sprouting everywhere.</p><p>Finally, Zayn stays.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>someday soon your whole life’s gonna change</b>
</p><p>
  <b>you’ll miss the magic of these good old days</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Their world will never again be the simple thing it was when they first met. Zayn has accepted this, fighting instead for the world they could have, the world they could be. On a lazy Monday night, lying back on Harry’s bed with two boys on either side of him, Zayn finally touches the center of their star.</p><p>Within it lies every time they’ve ever smiled. Its edges are compiled of every time they’ve ever cried. And in between flit their screams and punches and laughs.</p><p>Because the center of their star is not them; it’s not even him. The center of their star is one person, the person they are together; the person their souls originally made up, before they were broken apart into five pieces that needed to be put back together.</p><p>He has wild eyes, calm yet raging like a storm. His smile is careful and tight, always threatening to fall. His hands shake as he brings them to his chapped lips to bite his broken nails, and he is thin and frail with scars everywhere.</p><p>He is beautiful, and Zayn loves every piece of him.</p><p>On his right, Niall is draped across him, one of his hands curled to his chest and the other grasping Zayn’s sweater. Liam holds him from behind, snuffling softly into his neck, their legs slotted together like a key into a lock.</p><p>On his left, Harry has threaded his fingers through Zayn’s, still holding on tight long after he’s fallen asleep. Next to him, Louis snores into a pillow, his hands waving limply in the air until they catch onto Harry and hold.</p><p>The five of them, they’re together. They’re not dating, not really, because after so many exes and publicity stunts that’s become a dirty word. They’ll probably never want to face the outside world again, preferring to stay locked up in their too tall house with the endless hallways that lead to nowhere, but they’re together.</p><p>They love each other.</p><p>They love each other, and that’s all they know.<br/><br/><br/></p><p>
  <em> and you are forgiven. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> always and completely forgiven. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> - The Eleventh Doctor </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>still please don't kill me &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Liam</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>you taught me the courage of stars before you left -<br/>how light carries on endlessly, even after death.<br/>i couldn’t help but ask for you to say it all again -<br/>i tried to write it down, but i could never find a pen.<br/>i’d give anything to hear you say it one more time -<br/>that the universe was made just to be seen by my eyes.<br/>with shortness of breath, i’ll try to explain the infinite -<br/>how rare and beautiful it truly is that we exist…</p>
<p>- Sleeping At Last (Saturn)</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>lyrics taken from "The Kids Aren't Alright" by Fall Out Boy</p>
<p>PLAYLIST: common: 4) Liam</p>
<p>SONGS SUNG OR "WRITTEN" OR REFERENCED IN THIS CHAPTER:<br/>N/A</p>
<p>enjoy :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> the world had changed. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> and this new world was quiet and sad. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> - Benjamin Alire Sáenz (The Inexplicable Logic of My Life) </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>stuck in the jet wash</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>bad trip i couldn’t get off</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>To Liam, they are a mosaic.</p>
<p>They are built upon years and years of sand and trust, dunes stretching on for miles and miles past the horizon. He can see them now if he squints hard enough, and the four silhouettes at rest above them, standing against the sun.</p>
<p>It’s too early to be awake, and Liam doesn’t run anymore, but old habits are hard to break.</p>
<p>He smiles wryly at the thought, and the way his nails dig into his palms and leave half-moon scars when he’s scared, which is always. It seems nowadays he’s never fully here, constantly stuck on some horrible possibility of a future that will never come to pass.</p>
<p>Zayn says nothing can hurt them anymore.</p>
<p>Zayn is a liar.</p>
<p>Said liar is beside him now, holding his hand, because even when Zayn lies he’s still the most beautiful person in the world to Liam, and probably to everyone else too. Liam has loved Zayn through storms and blizzards, and he will love him through black holes and worse, if needed.</p>
<p>The sight of him makes Liam want to scream, so he does, at the sky. Beside him, Zayn laughs, the sound like church bells in a war, and it’s raining so hard Liam can feel his bones shiver beneath his skin but he’s so warm, <em>so</em> warm, because Zayn is <em>here,</em> they are <em>here,</em> and Liam gets to keep him this time.</p>
<p>“You’re my favorite,” he confesses, chest heaving, and Zayn looks at him like he’s the world. And for a moment, Liam lets himself think that maybe to Zayn, he is. “I love you most, and you’re my favorite.”</p>
<p>Zayn smiles. He pulls Liam closer, kisses him like he’s everything, like he used to, and Liam makes the foolish wish that they can just stay like this forever.</p>
<p>“You don’t mean that,” Zayn says, tracing his fingers along Liam’s cheek. “You don’t mean that, you love us all.”</p>
<p>But Liam does mean it, means it with his whole heart and body and soul, unable not to.</p>
<p>“Of course I do,” he whispers. “But I love you most. I’ll always love you most.”</p>
<p>Zayn grins into his mouth, hand pressed against Liam’s heart, and everything in Liam sings at the little sigh that escapes his mouth, something so sad and insurmountably happy somehow all at once.</p>
<p>Because that’s their story, when it comes down to it. The waves wash their mosaic away, and the sand sinks to the bottom of the ocean, and they go living even when they can’t breathe anymore. They are infinite and unbreakable and endless, all the things stars should be.</p>
<p>But Liam ends with Zayn. No matter the path, no matter the way, Liam ends with Zayn.</p>
<p>Even infinity has to end somewhere. And Liam knows that when that happens, it will be Zayn’s hand he’s holding.</p>
<p>Even with three other soulmates, there is no one else for him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>and maybe i bit off</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>more than i could chew</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>and overhead of the aqua blue</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The others are waiting for them when they wander back inside some few hours later, lips red and bitten by each other and the wind. Liam has been holding Zayn’s hand for almost three hours now, and he has no intention of letting go.</p>
<p>“Good morning!” Harry says, <em> much too cheerfully for so early in the morning </em> Louis grumbles, and kisses each of them on the mouth once, quick and sweet. He’s wearing a pink apron and his scars are out for all to see, the proof of their bloody red past staining this perfect golden morning. Liam pushes down the uneasy feeling in his stomach at the sight, instead choosing to settle across from Niall at the table as Harry sashays back to the stove, humming something old and vaguely familiar.</p>
<p>“Mornin’, boys,” Niall rasps, smiling tiredly. He reaches out to squeeze Liam’s hand, then takes another sip of coffee from the mug in his trembling fingers. “Up early, eh?”</p>
<p>Zayn shrugs. Liam nods, brushing his thumb across the back of Niall’s hand as Zayn turns to Louis, whose head is in his arms on the table. There’s something soft in Zayn’s eyes as he runs his fingers through Louis’ hair, smiling when Louis mutters a biting remark to someone in his head and swats at Zayn’s hand half-heartedly.</p>
<p>It’s not perfect, of course. This is gonna take work, because Liam can feel the stormcloud sneaking up behind him, readying to plunge him into darkness for the rest of the day no matter how many reasons he has to be happy. But their kitchen smells like cinnamon and peanut butter and home, and they’re all warm and real and here around him, so Liam thinks that maybe, just maybe, they’ll be able to figure it out anyway.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>fall to your knees</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>bring on the rapture</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Liam’s mind doesn’t function like the others’. It doesn’t wander like Louis’ or Zayn’s; it doesn’t spiral like Niall’s or Harry’s. It just follows the train tracks, stopping at each station however many times a day.</p>
<p>The stations aren’t always consistent, but the train does stop at some every day. Those ones, Liam makes sure to stay at as long he needs to, because the others are too busy flying or sinking to freeze.</p>
<p>The stations go something like this -</p>
<p>First stop: <em> make sure Zayn and Niall have eaten. </em></p>
<p>Second: <em> make sure Harry’s wearing short sleeves. </em></p>
<p>Third: <em> make sure Louis is awake and sober. </em></p>
<p>Liam knows it’s probably unhealthy that none of his stations are about him - he’s forgotten to eat, shower, and sleep so many times, but he’s fine. Compared to his boys, he’s always been fine.</p>
<p>It’d be selfish to ask for their help when they need his so much more, don’t you think?</p>
<p>Whatever. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Today is a good day. Liam’s not gonna ruin that just because his brain won’t shut up.</p>
<p>Zayn and Louis are outside somewhere. They left after breakfast holding hands, kissing each of the boys goodbye once before closing the door behind them. Harry just kind of stared at the closed door for almost ten minutes before Niall dragged him away into the living room, where the record player is blasting gnash’s <em> pajamas </em> on repeat for some reason.</p>
<p>Liam doesn’t know who bought the gnash record, but his bet’s on Louis. It’s funny, the odd things Louis has learned to love in the limbo between addiction and sobriety.</p>
<p>Niall is laughing, and Harry is just smiling stupidly at him as they move around the living room in some sort of not-dance. Harry twirls Niall once, twice, and then a third time, kissing him sweet and slow.</p>
<p>Liam watches them together, feeling the ugly ball of yarn in his chest start to untangle. Maybe today really will be a good day.</p>
<p>“You gonna dance with us, Liam?” Harry teases, reaching out for him, and Liam shakes his head.</p>
<p>“Nah,” he says, but then takes Harry’s hand anyway, letting himself be spun and twirled until he’s dizzy enough to see stars. He feels kind of sick, and a little bit terrified of whatever’s happening inside him, because what if he’s sick and what if it gets worse and what if he dies and what if -</p>
<p>Niall is smiling. Both of them are, they’re smiling at him. And if only for a moment, the ball of yarn behind his ribs unwinds.</p>
<p>Liam’s fine. He’s fine.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>blessed be the boys time can’t capture</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>on film or between the sheets</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Are we broken?”</p>
<p>It’s a question Liam has stayed up for hours pondering, which seems stupid now since Zayn just shuffles closer to Liam on bed and mumbles, “No, ‘course not.”</p>
<p>Liam brushes his hand across Zayn’s back, kissing his forehead and closing his eyes. On his other side, Harry is tangled up in Niall, Louis snoring beside them and dangling halfway off the bed.</p>
<p>Liam swallows. He doesn’t want to ask again, but <em> no </em> isn’t the right answer.</p>
<p>Luckily, Zayn knows him. Barely two minutes pass before he murmurs, “Why do you think we’re broken?”</p>
<p>Liam wants to shrug, but that would disturb the others. So instead he forces himself to stay still, burying his nose in Zayn’s unkempt hair and breathing him in.</p>
<p>He smells like home.</p>
<p>“Dunno,” he says, though he knows exactly why. “We don’t sleep with each other.”</p>
<p>Zayn rumbles with laughter, his mouth soft against Liam’s neck.</p>
<p>“What do you think we’re doing right now, Leeyum?”</p>
<p>Liam swallows. His eyes are open again and trying to claw holes in the ceiling.</p>
<p>“You know what I mean,” he says. Zayn hums, tracing a heart on Liam’s collarbone.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” he mumbles. “But I think you should say it.”</p>
<p>Liam hates him, just a little bit.</p>
<p>“We’re broken because we’re all in love and we’ve never had sex.”</p>
<p>Zayn smiles into his neck. Now, his finger traces one of Liam’s tattoos, rewriting the words into his bones.</p>
<p>
  <em> we are the quiet ones. </em>
</p>
<p>Liam loves him. Liam’s paid too high a price not to love him.</p>
<p>“So what?” Zayn says, finally. “Why does it matter?”</p>
<p>Liam doesn’t know.</p>
<p>“Because… because we should?”</p>
<p>Zayn smiles. He cranes his neck just enough to kiss Liam’s jaw.</p>
<p>“Do you want to?”</p>
<p>Liam thinks. He’s good at that, thinking. Sometimes it’s all he ever does, because he doesn’t have a special thing like any of the others. He can’t draw, can’t dress, can’t write, can’t play, is just Liam who can sing, which all the others can do anyway. So instead he thinks, turning words over in his mind until they’re too twisted up to make much sense.</p>
<p>“No,” is the only word he can bring himself to say now, because he doesn’t. He’s just never cared, never loved their bodies nearly as much as he loves their souls, never thought <em> I want to touch him </em> outside of <em> I want to hold his hand. </em></p>
<p>No, Liam doesn’t want to sleep with them. That’s the truth, that’s the whole of it. But it doesn’t feel like enough.</p>
<p>Zayn’s sleeping more lately. As he dozes off against Liam’s chest, Liam counts each breath he takes until the numbers blur together just like the words, hoping that in the morning they’ll just forget this conversation ever happened.</p>
<p>Liam could never quite swallow it the same way the others did - the hate fame brought. The expectations of who he should be, what he should want.</p>
<p><em> No </em>is his answer, but he knows it will never be the right one.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>i always fall from your window</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>to the pitch black streets</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Liam has never quite known how to stop thinking. Though his brain gets stuck, it never stops, and he finds himself whirling around in nonsensical zig zags, the nervousness creeping up his spine and lodging in between his head and shoulders, ready to slit his throat at any moment.</p>
<p>So Liam avoids leaving their house. Because their house is safe, and familiar, and he can always rely on one of the others to wander by and say hello, reminding him that no one can touch him here.</p>
<p>But the world isn’t empty just because it’s ending. Food seems to just magically appear in their fridge most of the time, but Harry still likes to go out sometimes, though he hides from the crowds instead of following them now. And Liam knows that the food won’t just keep showing up forever, and that someone has to brave the grocery store to get it.</p>
<p>So at dawn, because old habits are hard to break, Liam’s at the door in a soft hoodie and worn sneakers, the ones that Harry and Niall wrote quotes all over back at that recording session some eight years ago. He wants to wear gloves too but he can’t find any.</p>
<p>Someone coughs beside him. He glances over to find Louis, who smiles and slips his hand into Liam’s.</p>
<p>“It’s cold out there,” he says with a wink and a smirk. “Let me warm you up.”</p>
<p>Liam flushes red, but doesn’t pull away. Louis doesn’t mean it that way, not anymore. Still, he can feel the train in his head start to stop, so he tries for a shaky smile, kissing Louis good morning.</p>
<p>They go in Louis’ beat up blue car. They usually walk, but Liam’s legs aren’t carrying him right and Louis seems content to follow him where the wind blows, holding on tight.</p>
<p>The store is filled to the brim with people. They all wear masks, and Liam pulls his own up, watching Louis do the same. Louis’ fingers loosen in his and for a moment, Liam panics, thinking he’s going to let go.</p>
<p>Instead, Louis’ fingers weave through his and lock into place, their palms pressed together like puzzle pieces. He squeezes once, then starts forward, and Liam lets out the breath he’s been holding, suddenly wanting to kiss Louis until he doesn’t have any left.</p>
<p>They make their way methodically through the aisles, doing their best to follow the arrows. Louis throws random things that Liam knows were definitely <em> not </em> on the list in the cart, like fruit loops for Harry and chocolate milk for Niall and Hostess sweets for Zayn. At one point he holds up a batch of vanilla cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles on them and considers them for a moment, glancing at Liam three times before placing them gently in the cart.</p>
<p>Vanilla is Liam’s favorite. Something in him is giddy that Louis remembers; the rest of him is buzzing with fear, eyes and ears hyperaware of how much closer everyone is than they should be. Six feet at least, right?</p>
<p>No wait, thirteen.</p>
<p>Hold up, no, it was… sixteen? Or was it twenty?</p>
<p>Oh god. Everyone’s too close. Liam’s gonna catch it. He’s gonna catch it and he’s gonna get sick and he’s gonna die. He’s gonna catch it and he’s gonna get sick and he’s gonna spread it to all his boys and they’re all gonna die.</p>
<p>They’re all gonna <em> die. </em></p>
<p>Why is he here? Why the fuck are they here? This isn’t safe. The fridge will refill itself. They don’t need vanilla cupcakes. At least at home it’s safe. Besides, it takes approximately twenty-one days to die of starvation, so it’d be fine. They’d be fine. Why’re they here -</p>
<p>“Liam.”</p>
<p>Louis’ voice is soft. Liam blinks three times, turning his head just the slightest bit to realize they’re alone in a bathroom. Liam’s got his knees pulled to his chest, Louis’ hands on his arms. He pinches himself to make sure he’s real.</p>
<p>“What -”</p>
<p>“You had a panic attack, love,” Louis says softly. “Just breathe, now. Focus on me.” He takes Liam’s hand and presses it to his chest, smiling. “Feel my heart. Breathe.”</p>
<p>Liam does as he’s told, because that’s always been what he’s good at. He breathes in, then out, then in again, and does so until Louis kisses him, his own breaths gasping <em> I love you </em> against Liam’s lips.</p>
<p>They drive back in silence, though Liam’s mind is screaming. Louis holds his hand the whole way home.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>and with the black banners raised</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>as the crooked smiles fade</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The door is open when they get home, as it always is when one of them leaves. Some bullshit Harry believes in about them always being welcome or something, Liam doesn’t know. He was too tired to listen that day.</p>
<p>Louis is quiet as he pulls bags from the trunk, handing some to Liam. When Liam tries to balance them in both hands, Louis shakes his head, reaching for Liam’s hand.</p>
<p>It’s only been thirty minutes, but Liam thinks he’s forgotten how to speak.</p>
<p>He’s proven wrong only seconds later, when Louis kisses him at the door and whispers, “I’ll be right back, okay?”</p>
<p>Liam just nods vacantly, heading towards the kitchen to put the milk in the fridge. Now, its shelves are fully stocked, and Liam would be angry if he had the energy, but he doesn’t.</p>
<p>It was Zayn, probably. Zayn is magic.</p>
<p>He wanders towards the living room, where the others are. Louis is whispering to them, probably in worry for Liam, but it doesn’t matter. Liam’s problems aren’t that bad, not compared to the rest of them. It’s fine, he’s fine.</p>
<p>“I’m okay,” he says, because he feels like he should, and four pairs of wide eyes turn on him. Then three of those pairs fall on Zayn, who pushes forward towards Liam, enveloping him in his arms and kissing him.</p>
<p>“We’re worried,” Zayn whispers, pulling back just enough to hand Liam his elephant. He’s been carrying it around less and less lately, its bed being made in the seat of Zayn’s window. “Panic attacks aren’t normal, Li, you know that?”</p>
<p>Liam shrugs, wrapping his arms around Zayn’s waist and holding him close. The record player is too loud, and they’re all too quiet.</p>
<p>After a moment, Niall walks over and plasters himself to their side, hugging them tight. Harry’s not far behind, dragging Louis with him, and as they all sag to the ground together, Liam’s mind stops.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>former heroes who quit too late</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>just wanna fill up the trophy case again</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hey.”</p>
<p>Liam doesn’t look up from wiping down the counter. It’s already spotless and shining, but Niall will rub his fingers raw trying to make it perfect tomorrow if Liam doesn’t do it first. And while Liam doesn’t see why it matters, Niall will, and so Liam’s been scrubbing the marble smooth for the past hour, unable to stop.</p>
<p>“Hey,” he answers. Zayn breathes deeply, like he’s trying to suck all the oxygen in the world into his mouth at once, then lets it out with the force of a hurricane. He steps closer, reaching out a hesitant hand.</p>
<p>“Louis told us you had a panic attack,” he says quietly. “At the grocery store.”</p>
<p>Liam shrugs, and refrains from saying <em> I know. </em> Damn Louis and his stupid worry, so much more rational than Liam’s. Still, Liam doesn’t need to be taken care of. He’s fine. He’s always fine.</p>
<p>“I’m fine,” he says aloud, and Zayn sighs. Liam wants to punch him.</p>
<p>“Can you tell me why?”</p>
<p>Liam shrugs again. He forces himself to pull the rag from the counter and drop it into the laundry basket Harry left by the fridge. The record player’s still on, crooning Evanescence’s <em> My Immortal </em>because Louis is a little shit who insists on buying emo records just to spite them.</p>
<p>Zayn steps closer. He pushes himself against Liam even as he flails to get away, wrapping his arms around Liam’s neck and kissing him still.</p>
<p>“Tell me why,” he whispers. Liam shakes his head.</p>
<p>God, don’t fucking cry. If he cries then everything ends.</p>
<p>“You already know,” he mumbles. “You always know. You know everything.”</p>
<p>Zayn shrugs, kissing him again. He lets his arms slip from Liam’s neck, one hand landing on Liam’s shoulder and the other slipping down to curl around Liam’s fingers. Then, Zayn starts to sway, humming thoughtfully.</p>
<p>“I don’t know everything,” he says. Liam grits his teeth, but moves with him across the shiny kitchen floor, bare feet somehow silent against waxed wood.</p>
<p>Zayn kisses him a third time. Liam would hate him if he didn’t love him so much.</p>
<p>“I know you’ve never liked crowds,” Zayn murmurs. “I know they terrify you even more now because we’re in a pandemic and all. I know you hate when people rush at us and I know you hate sleeping alone and I know you hate dancing with me but do it anyway because you think it makes me happy.”</p>
<p>Fuck him.</p>
<p>“I don’t hate dancing with you,” he says, because he doesn’t. Sort of. Not quite. “And it does make you happy.”</p>
<p>Zayn shrugs, pulling back and letting his arms fall limply to his sides.</p>
<p><em>“You </em> make me happy,” he says. “The dancing’s nice, sure, but it doesn’t really matter what we’re doing. If I’m with you, I’m happy.”</p>
<p>Something sort of almost like a smile flits across his face. He shrugs, looking smaller and older than ever. Liam wants to wrap him up in his arms and never let go.</p>
<p>“I love you,” Zayn whispers. He steps forward just enough to kiss Liam one last time, then turns and walks towards the stairs, disappearing up them as if he was never even there in the first place.</p>
<p><em> Yeah, that’s it, </em> Liam thinks, alone again. <em> I’m in love with a ghost. </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>and in the end</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>i’d do it all again</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>i think you’re my best friend</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Monday comes with rain. Thunder crashes outside, the lightning flashing so brightly it blinds Liam into black for a moment. Everything about it makes Liam want to shake until he crumbles into ruins, makes him want to disintegrate into ashes to be blown away by the wind. Anything to stop thinking about how goddamn loud it is, and how angry the world seems to be. Anything at all.</p>
<p>But when Harry saw, he laughed. He ran through the house throwing open all the windows, sticking his arms out into the air and letting the sky cry on his scars as he screeched in happiness, and Liam couldn’t ask him to stop, because he looked so full and whole and <em> beautiful, </em> like he’d never even been sad at all, and how could Liam take that away from him?</p>
<p>So he sits here at the kitchen table, keeping himself carefully still as Harry laughs and Louis grins and Zayn and Niall eat, emptying their plates for the first time in years. Harry holds Niall’s hand tight in his, kissing him with a squeal when he notices, and Niall beams like sunshine. Zayn reaches over and takes Liam’s hand under the table, offering his own proud smile, and for a moment Liam thinks he can see angel’s wings protruding from Zayn’s back, but then he blinks and they’re gone.</p>
<p>“You guys did so good,” Louis rasps, eyes glistening. He looks so happy, so awake, and Zayn kisses him hard, grinning against his lips. Liam averts his eyes, picking at an imaginary knot in the wood. It’s better than facing how fucking sad he is.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” he echoes. “We’re proud of you.”</p>
<p>Niall and Zayn each mumble their thanks, caught up in the joy sparkling in the air and getting lost in kisses from Harry and Louis. Liam stares resolutely at the table, wishing he could just become a part of it, grow like a tree that everyone loved to look at but never too long and never too hard.</p>
<p>Everyone else is getting better. Everyone else is moving forward. Everyone else is happy.</p>
<p>Liam’s just fine. Fine on his best days, dead on his worst. Never happy.</p>
<p>“You okay?”</p>
<p>Liam jolts from his trance, plastering on a smile and nodding.</p>
<p>“Of course, Zaynie,” he says, kissing him. “You’re beautiful.”</p>
<p>Zayn smiles uncertainly, eyes looking too long and too hard. He nods, squeezing Liam’s hand.</p>
<p>“So are you,” he says, and Liam can see he wants to say more, but it’s nothing Liam hasn’t heard before.</p>
<p>
  <em> Talk to me. </em>
</p>
<p>Yeah, no thanks. Liam would rather die.</p>
<p>And sometimes, late at night when the others have all fallen asleep beside him and Liam finds himself counting his heartbeats and digging his nails into his skin so deeply they bleed, he thinks, dangerously, that maybe he already has.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>don’t you know that the kids aren’t all</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>kids aren’t alright</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There were people who had it worse than them. For all the hate the boys got, at least their fans loved them. At least they had those millions.</p>
<p>And then those same fans had turned around and tore girls they didn’t even know to shreds for no reason. No amount of pride or love or good intentions could ever erase the things those “fans” had said, often leaving Eleanor to sob wretchedly in Harry and Louis’ arms at the end of a long press day.</p>
<p>Sometimes the girls were beards. Sometimes they were girlfriends. But they were always, always friends, and Liam will never be able to forgive the faceless people who tried to cut them down just because Liam loved them.</p>
<p>Liam Payne’s life belongs to Liam Payne, just like Zayn Malik’s belongs to Zayn Malik. Just like Harry Styles’ belongs to Harry Styles. Just like Niall Horan’s belongs to Niall Horan. Just like Louis Tomlinson’s belongs to Louis Tomlinson.</p>
<p>Their lives belong to them, and only them, and no amount of hateful “jokes” or death threats can ever change that.</p>
<p>The depression used to be worse. Liam knows something’s fucked up in his brain; it doesn’t stop him from being sad. But back then it was so much worse, because the hate came pouring in every day and it was impossible to avoid it.</p>
<p>Sometimes, when the bathroom door was locked and Liam could breathe, he’d scroll through all the hate comments just to see what he was doing wrong. What he needed to change. What he could do better. Because it didn’t matter how many times people said they loved him, one criticism would make all the trains go haywire, skipping all their stops and leaving Liam stranded in the negativity, unable to get off.</p>
<p>It isn’t like that anymore. Without their phones, Liam doesn’t know what people think of him. Mostly, they probably think he’s dead, since he’s disappeared with the others, but Liam doesn’t care what they think anymore.</p>
<p>They made him wanna die. Why should they get to know if he really did?</p>
<p>There’s a knock on his door. Liam doesn’t move, just stares at his ceiling as the lights all shine together in a clashing rainbow around him.</p>
<p>After a moment, footsteps retreat into the living room and away. Liam closes his eyes, not wanting to think anymore.</p>
<p>Liam doesn’t know how to be happy without wondering what someone else will think. He can’t eat without thinking about his perfect lustworthy figure, can’t sleep without thinking about how the bags beneath his eyes dull his face, can’t speak without thinking about exactly how his words will be taken.</p>
<p>There is no happiness in fame, not for Liam. Every day, he struggles to move forward on broken legs, letting everyone else’s remarks dictate who he is. Not a minute goes by that he doesn’t wish people were kinder, and not a second goes by that people prove they won’t be.</p>
<p>Liam no longer lives in a void of mirrors and echoing screams. Instead, he lives in silence and darkness, and he can’t help but wonder if maybe he was better off before.</p>
<p>What’s better? To hate yourself and be loved by millions? Or to love yourself and be hated by millions?</p>
<p>Or is what’s best to not be yourself at all, and instead bow to the expectations every stranger lays out for you?</p>
<p>Don’t ask Liam. Liam doesn’t know.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>i’m yours</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>when it rains it pours</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>stay thirsty like before</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When Liam finally emerges, it’s dark out. The moon is shining through the open windows, washing Louis’ bare inked chest in silver. He’s beautiful, legs crossed and eyes closed as he mumbles to someone in his head, his hands shaking in his lap.</p>
<p>Harry’s swaying to the record player - Lauv, this time. <em> Canada, </em>Liam thinks - an invisible person cradled in his arms again. This has been happening more and more lately, Harry dancing with whatever hallucination of Taylor he sees in that moment, and it’d disturb Liam if Zayn wasn’t watching Harry with a soft smile, the one that says he isn’t worried about anything right now.</p>
<p>God, Liam wishes that were him.</p>
<p>Liam takes a deep breath, wandering over to Zayn and settling next to him on the couch. Zayn turns to look at him and his eyes sparkle, his smile outshining the damn sun. Liam burns red under his gaze, letting their kiss last far longer than his lungs would like, because Zayn is worth dying for.</p>
<p>Zayn twines their fingers together as he pulls away, lips the color of strawberries, and shuffles closer, resting his head on Liam’s shoulder. Liam drops his head on top of Zayn’s, eyes flicking around the room to the others, and smiles when he sees Niall stand from the rocking chair.</p>
<p>Niall bites his lip and wipes his hands on his grey sweatpants, then walks slowly forward until he can slip into the empty space between Harry’s arms and his chest. Harry’s eyes snap open, blowing wide when he sees another blonde blue-eyed beauty in his arms, not the one he misses but maybe one better, and Niall smiles sheepishly, shrugging.</p>
<p>“Wanted to dance with you,” he mumbles, ducking his head to his chest. He looks younger, lighter, almost like the boy in so many of Liam’s stained photographs.</p>
<p>And Harry.</p>
<p>Harry <em> glows. </em> He beams, gold spilling out from his mouth as he kisses Niall messily, hard, and pulls away with a shrieking laugh, bouncing up and down as Niall wraps his arms around his waist, eyes twinkling when Harry kisses him again, gentle hands on his face.</p>
<p>“Why didn’t we do this sooner?”</p>
<p>Liam can’t keep the words from slipping past his lips, too tired to filter every thought meticulously like usual. But nothing implodes.</p>
<p>Instead, their star stays shining brightly in the sky, and comes home to Liam in Zayn’s eyes. Zayn kisses his cheek, curling closer and hugging his elephant tightly, and something like a smile flits across Liam’s face, soft and warm and almost nearly happy.</p>
<p>“Because we’re dumbasses, that’s why.”</p>
<p>When Liam looks up, Louis is smirking at him, his eyes glittering with mirth. His hands are still shaking, but Louis is letting them, no longer trying to fight the reminders of his addiction. Instead, he embraces the fucked-up parts of his perfect wonderful self, and Liam wants to kiss him but is too far away.</p>
<p>“I love you,” he breathes, because he does and because it’s true and because they are the only home he’s ever known. “I love you all so much.”</p>
<p>They all smile. Some wide, some soft, some bittersweet, but they all smile, and Liam drinks in their happiness like four drops of water in a desert, as if it could sustain him forever if he just held on tightly enough.</p>
<p>“We love you too,” Zayn says quietly, and Harry repeats the sentiment brightly, chirping like the birds outside their windows on Sunday mornings, and Niall shuts him up with a kiss.</p>
<p>Liam keeps his eyes locked on Louis’, never wanting to leave that endless stormy sea. Louis grins.</p>
<p>“Yeah, Payno,” he says, with that lovely rasp in his voice that Liam wants to pull right out of him with kisses and bites. “We love you. Always and forever.”</p>
<p>Liam stares. Niall nods, tucking his head into Harry’s shoulder.</p>
<p>“Yup. Always and forever, that’s us.”</p>
<p>And something warm and gooey and perfect blooms in Liam’s chest, a million irises and sunflowers and bluebells and forget-me-nots bursting into colorful existence where there have only ever been bloody rose thorns and black.</p>
<p><em> Always and forever, </em>his mind promises back, his throat too dry to speak, and Liam looks down at his and Zayn’s entwined hands, brushing his thumb over the soft inked skin he knows so well.</p>
<p><em> Always and forever, </em> he recites one more time. <em> Always and forever, </em>and he means it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>don’t you know that the kids aren’t all</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>kids aren’t alright</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Liam believes in soulmates.</p>
<p>He would never tell you, not like Harry. He’d never ink it into his skin, not like Louis. And he’d never sing it in cryptic words, not like Zayn.</p>
<p>He’d certainly never scream it off the top of buildings, not like Niall.</p>
<p>His soulmates are his secret. He keeps the four of them in his heart, deep down where all the other secrets go - the <em> I love you’s, </em> the <em> I’m so sad’s, </em> the <em> sometimes I think we’re all dead and that scares me more than I can ever tell you because I never thought I’d survive this but how could I ever exist knowing you followed me for nothing? </em></p>
<p>So when Niall asks him, “Do you believe in soulmates?” and it’s a cold Wednesday morning and they’re lying staring at the glowstars on Niall’s ceiling and Zayn is drawing on the walls of the fifth floor and Harry and Louis are outside kissing and screaming in the rain and every single one of the thirty-something record players in the house is blasting Ed Sheeran’s <em> Hearts Don’t Break Around Here, </em>Liam answers, “No.”</p>
<p>Niall hums. His fingers brush against Liam’s, hesitating for a moment before interlocking and holding on tight. Liam smiles, eyes drooping closed, and Niall mumbles along with every other word of the song surrounding them like a blanket in winter.</p>
<p>“Why do you ask?”</p>
<p>Liam lets the question slip out while he waits for the song to change, but as its last notes trickle out, it just starts up again from the beginning. Record players don’t work that way, but before Liam can dwell on it too much, Niall pipes up from beside him.</p>
<p>“I do. That’s why I asked, because I do believe in them.”</p>
<p>Liam hums. There are so many ways he could ask the single question on his mind, but he refrains, lifting Niall’s hand to his lips and kissing the back of it with a smile.</p>
<p>In his head, the train stops. The sign at the station glares: <em> IT’S NOT YOU, IDIOT. </em></p>
<p>Niall’s eyes meet his, a starry night amongst a sunny face, and Liam feels the sign in his head flicker out for just a second, because it can’t be true, because if it were true he wouldn’t love them more than he could possibly express with any metaphor. But then it comes back on, now neon red and burning the back of Liam’s retinas, so he closes his eyes again, turning away. Niall squeezes his hand.</p>
<p>“I believe in you and Zayn. And Harry and Louis. I believe in you so badly, it infects me. I can’t think right, because my mind is tangled in all your red strings.”</p>
<p>It makes no sense. That’s the thing about Niall, he makes no sense. But Liam knows how his heart beats and how his brain shutters, so he does his best to make sense of the nonsense.</p>
<p>“I believe in us,” Liam says. “I believe in the red strings that connect you and me, and the ones that connect us to the other three. I believe in how those strings turn golden when Harry laughs, and I believe in how they burn orange when Louis smiles. I believe in how they glow pink when Zayn kisses me, and I believe in how they blaze purple when you touch me. I believe in us.”</p>
<p>Niall laughs. He rolls onto his stomach, letting go of Liam’s hand so he can lean up on his elbows and look Liam in his now open eyes.</p>
<p>“I’m not a part of you,” he says, as if it’s the absolute truth and not a blasphemous falsehood, and his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “I mean yeah, I am, but I’m not believable like you four. I don’t fit with you. I’m not your missing puzzle piece or whatever, I’m just the cup of coffee next to the puzzle you guys make up. I’m not your soulmate.”</p>
<p>Liam shakes his head, reaching up to touch Niall’s face.</p>
<p>“You’re the best part of us, Niall,” he murmurs, because hearts may not split equally but there’s definitely a piece of Liam’s that resides in Niall’s hands, whether he believes it or not. “You’re our sunshine and our rainstorm and our happiness and our sadness and our fantasy and our reality. You’re the one that keeps us together, the one that takes care of us. You’re everything, a puzzle piece most of all, but even if you weren’t, we could never live without you. You complete us.”</p>
<p>Niall looks like he might cry. Liam cranes his neck to kiss him, then pulls him down onto his chest, brushing his fingers through his hair and threading their fingers together over his stomach.</p>
<p>“You’re our soulmate, Ni. I don’t know why we each got four; I don’t have the answers to everything. I’m not Zayn. But I know you belong in our puzzle, and I know you belong with us.”</p>
<p>Liam’s shirt is wet. Niall is shaking, but he’s hiding his face in Liam’s chest, so Liam pretends it’s the cold and pulls the blanket up over them, kissing Niall’s forehead.</p>
<p>He says nothing else, instead closing his eyes and staring at the flickering sign of the station. The train pulls back around, filled to the brim with flowers and colors and stars, and Liam inches backwards towards it, keeping his eyes locked on the sign the whole way.</p>
<p><em> It is me, </em> he thinks back, watching with a hard grin as a few of the sign’s letters go dark. <em> I am his soulmate, I’m one of five, I’m one of a kind, I’m me. </em></p>
<p>The sign mocks him, left blinking <em> IDIOT. </em>Liam stares right back.</p>
<p>
  <em> Yeah, idiot. Their idiot. </em>
</p>
<p>And maybe it’s not entirely true. Maybe this is one of those days where he believes he’s better than his brain says because <em> they </em> tell him he is, but in the end it doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>Closing the train car’s door behind him, Liam watches the sign disappear out the back window, careful to keep his hands clutched around the forget-me-nots bursting through the walls. He wraps their vines around his fingers three times each, and he caresses their leaves as gently as he can, knowing how easy they break. He holds on tight, and he doesn’t let go.</p>
<p>He holds on tight, and he <em> refuses </em>to let go.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>i’m not passive but aggressive</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>take note, it’s not impressive</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Taylor’s on the record player again. <em> Begin Again, </em>now. They’ve tried to play other things, but they can never get further than nine seconds before Taylor’s voice suddenly  fills the air, and Liam would find it annoying if not for the way that Harry’s face lights up like the sun whenever he hears his best friend singing. Sometimes he’ll sit there next to the record player for hours, reading a book or watching the birds out the window, anything to keep from wandering too far away to hear.</p>
<p>Liam would find it sweet if it wasn’t so sad.</p>
<p>The world is ending. It hits Liam, sometimes, in waves. One moment, he’s soaring through the clouds with one of his boys against his chest and the next, he’s curled in a ball in the corner plagued with the realization that nothing lasts forever, and certainly not them.</p>
<p>Except maybe they could. Because while this thing they have is tumultuous and terrifying and completely, crazily unsteady, it’s theirs. And it’s everything to Liam, cradled in between his palms like an oasis cased in glass.</p>
<p>Zayn is painting the fourth floor now, dancing with Louis every once in awhile and kissing him hard and slow, because that’s a thing they do now. Niall is sitting criss-cross on the counter in the kitchen, a book in his lap and his eyes on Harry by the record player, whose fingers tap-dance on his legs. Liam passes by each of them with a smile and a wave, making his way up and down the steps so many times he loses count.</p>
<p>This thing they have isn’t perfect. It never will be. But this giant house of a heart they all share is more than enough to keep them together.</p>
<p>After all, they’re soulmates.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>empty your sadness</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>like you’re dumping your purse</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The world is bright, a rainbow after rain, and yet Liam can see the clouds on the horizon. They linger with the intent to pour, thunder and lightning and raindrops drowning Liam in sadness.</p>
<p>He tries to focus on the rainbow. Keep his head up, let them kiss him, let them love him, and stay above water. But it’s always easier not to breathe, and that temptation is hard to swallow down.</p>
<p>Liam closes his eyes. He lets Taylor’s voice fill his ears, feels his heart beat to the rhythm of <em> august </em>and Harry’s feet dancing across the kitchen floor; he breathes in the golden smell of pancakes and cherries, smiling against Louis’ mouth when he kisses him.</p>
<p>They’re here. Warm, beside him. Real.</p>
<p>Zayn’s hand slips into his under the table. The footsteps stop, but Liam’s heart carries on, adjusting to the new beat of Niall’s fingertips tapping out baselines on the table. Harry’s lips touch his cheek, and Liam feels everything in him hum like a thousand orchids strumming harps.</p>
<p>The clouds are rolling in, and the rainbow is fading. The heaviness settles in his chest, an endless field ahead of him covered in bottomless puddles and hidden landmines, but here with them, he feels a map materialize in his mind’s eye.</p>
<p>“We love you, Liam, you know that?” Louis says, and Liam opens his eyes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>on my bedroom floor</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>we put your curse in reverse</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There are poems next to Zayn’s drawings on the walls, scrawled in his handwriting.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>you said you couldn’t bring yourself to fall in love with the world, </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> so i fell in love with it for you. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> dipped my pretty pink nails into honey and wrapped my fingers around yours, </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> tied us together the only way i knew how. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i brought to life galaxies in your name and prayed for forgiveness every night you slept by someone else’s side; </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i remember always wondering why i needed forgiveness from a god who had never done me a damn bit of good. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> and in the end the anger infested me like a cancer, </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> shooting through my veins like vines up the walls of a house. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> and when it finally stopped growing you could no longer see into my soul </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> because my windows were all boarded up. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> still i waited by the door for you, because i thought maybe you’d come, </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> when my walls were down and my eyes were shining, but instead </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i found you in between the pages of my books and at home in my heart - </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> you smiled at me. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> you said, </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “you couldn’t bring yourself to fall in love with the world, </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> so i fell in love with you for you.” </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Liam doesn’t know when Zayn became a poet. Maybe it was when they first kissed, like in the movies. Maybe it was when he left, and it rained for weeks. Maybe it was when he came here, came home, and found peace in the scars on the walls and in their skin.</p>
<p>Maybe he’s always been one.</p>
<p>Liam could never be a poet. His words and thoughts come in frantic scrambles. Less whispers and more screams, less hope and more despair. And he knows that if he told Zayn all this he’d say that some poems are sad, but that’s not the problem.</p>
<p>Liam can never be a poet because Liam gave all his poetry to Zayn the moment he met him. Gave his heart and soul and mind entirely to this beautiful boy with eyes as dark as the night, and he never asked for it back. So all of Liam’s poetry rests in Zayn’s hands, and he can find not an ounce of regret in him for it, because Zayn has taken that poetry and rewritten it into colors and flowers and stars, has burned it into their skin so none of them can ever forget just how infinite love feels.</p>
<p>The others curl around him, breathing in one-sided conversations that Liam never has the courage to reciprocate. Liam doesn’t speak much.</p>
<p>
  <em> we are the quiet ones. </em>
</p>
<p>He and Zayn loved in the background of Harry and Louis’ epic romance, let themselves be extras in the movie they should’ve starred in, because that’s what you do for the people you love. You let them shine, you hold them up, and you pray they return to you backstage when the curtain falls. And Liam and Zayn became masters at it, learning how to hide every thought in the folds of their hearts rather than the folds of their gums.</p>
<p>Liam forgot the words <em> I love you </em>a long time ago. Forgot how to say them, forgot what they meant. But the four of them remind him, when they can. And they make him feel it, make him burst into flames and burn down to ashes and wash away with the waves in the name of their love.</p>
<p>Secrets have always haunted them. But now, listening to the silence that comes with night in the middle of nowhere and five boys running out of things to say, Liam can’t think of any ghosts besides the ones with whom he shares this bed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>and it’s our time now</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>if you want to to be</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They had plans.</p>
<p>Okay, well, no. Liam had plans. No matter how many obstacles they hit or how hard they had to swerve to avoid others, Liam has always believed in his plans. Because there was never a doubt in his mind that <em> this, </em> him and Zayn, they were endgame. They were it, and they were as good as it was going to get.</p>
<p>Liam was going to marry Zayn. Was going to get down on bended knee in the kitchen while Zayn cried over onions and nodded through breathless sobs. Was going to walk their four daughters to kindergarten every day and hear all their crazy stories when they came home. Was going to live too far from Harry and Louis and Niall to see them as often as he wanted but just close enough for as often as he needed. And that was going to be that.</p>
<p>And then Zayn left and tore that plan to shreds with his bare hands, just like their band. Just like their future. Just like Liam’s heart.</p>
<p>But Liam could never hate him. Even now, as he sees the scars they’ve inflicted on each other in the aftermath, Liam could never hate Zayn Malik.</p>
<p>“This seat taken?”</p>
<p>Liam jumps, toppling off of the couch and onto the hideous rug Harry bought his first day here. Louis raises an eyebrow at him, smiling, and lowers himself to the ground to sit across from Liam.</p>
<p>His eyes are twinkling. His hands are shaking. His cheeks are flushing.</p>
<p>Liam loves him.</p>
<p>“Whatcha thinkin’ ‘bout?” Louis says. His voice sounds like when you bite into an apple for the first time and your mind goes white with sweetness. Liam knows that doesn’t make sense.</p>
<p>He shrugs.</p>
<p>“Stuff.”</p>
<p>Louis smirks. He reaches out for Liam’s hands and holds them, loose and gentle. He brushes his thumbs over Liam’s knuckles, smiling at nothing like an idiot.</p>
<p>“What kind of stuff?”</p>
<p>Liam shrugs again.</p>
<p>“Y’know. Just stuff.”</p>
<p>Louis’ smile fades. He lifts his head, looking Liam right in the eyes, and for a moment he could almost be that boy from all those years ago, the one he was when they first met.</p>
<p>But that boy is dead now. And Liam has no interest in resurrecting him.</p>
<p>“Look,” Louis says, exasperated. “I know you don’t - I know you don’t love me like the others.”</p>
<p>Liam’s brow furrows. No, that isn’t right.</p>
<p>“But I’m here to help, okay?” Louis rambles on. “Whatever you need, I’ll -”</p>
<p>“I love you,” Liam interrupts, confused. Louis stops, hands trembling even as Liam holds them tighter, trying to still them.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“I love you,” Liam says, again. “Just like the others. I just don’t like you sometimes, that’s all. Just because we don’t always fit doesn’t mean we don’t belong in the same puzzle.”</p>
<p>Louis blinks. Liam smiles.</p>
<p>“Oh,” Louis breathes finally, cheeks dusted pink. “Then I, uh… I love you, too.”</p>
<p>Liam grins, his eyes upside down smiles.</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>Louis laughs, dropping his head like a weight from his shoulders. Liam leans over and kisses his scalp, buries his nose in that soft feathery hair he’s always loved so much. Louis grins at their hands, shifting just the tiniest bit to link their fingers.</p>
<p>“So, Zayn, huh?”</p>
<p>Liam pulls back, something in his chest tightening.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>Louis smiles. His eyes follow their hands as he swings them side to side, like a cat’s cradle.</p>
<p>“You were thinking about Zayn. You only smile like that when you’re thinking about Zayn.”</p>
<p>Liam feels like his breath has been ripped from his lungs by rusty chains and locked up out of reach.</p>
<p>“Oh,” he murmurs. “Yeah, I guess I was.”</p>
<p>Louis just smiles. He kisses one of Liam’s knuckles on his right hand, nipping it playfully.</p>
<p>“It’s cool. You have different smiles for all of us, actually.” <em> What? </em> “But anyway. Zayn.”</p>
<p>Liam shrugs. His back hurts.</p>
<p>“I love him.”</p>
<p>Louis rolls his eyes. He gets bored of playing with Liam’s fingers and instead drops their hands to the empty space between them, holding them just above the carpet.</p>
<p>“I know that, dumbass. Everybody knows that. What else?”</p>
<p>Liam shrugs again. Fuck.</p>
<p>“I was going to marry him.”</p>
<p>Louis nods.</p>
<p>“And I was gonna marry Harry. So?”</p>
<p>Liam holds his shoulders down. Everything aches, his heart most of all.</p>
<p>“So, what if that was it? What if the right path to take was to just stick it out, follow him when he left and marry him in secret and have four daughters who only see their uncles on holidays? What if that was it, and we missed it?”</p>
<p>Louis stares at him. Liam flushes red.</p>
<p>“I mean, obviously it doesn’t matter, it’s over now -”</p>
<p>“Why the fuck would that be it?”</p>
<p>Liam’s face burns. He sputters.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>Louis’ eyes cloud with anger. Liam can feel the panic rising in his chest, but he shoves it down. Now is not the time to fall apart.</p>
<p>“Why the fuck would that be it? Why the fuck would that <em> ever </em> be it?” Louis seethes. “In what world could the five of us ever live apart? In what universe could we ever be happy with only a fraction of what we’ve always been meant to have?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know what you mean,” Liam tries, wanting desperately to return to the calm sea they were swimming in before he ruined it all with his stupid mouth, opening it too far to hold in the air beneath the crashing waves. “I don’t know what you mean, Lou, I -”</p>
<p>“I <em> love </em> you,” Louis says. His voice breaks, and tears are suddenly streaming down his cheeks. Leave it to Louis to be the storm that always rains. <em>“We </em>love you, and if it was just two of us then this would never work. It’s five or nothing, all or nothing, us or nothing. This puzzle would never be complete without every single one of our hearts beating in sync.”</p>
<p>Liam can’t breathe.</p>
<p>“Louis,” he whispers, but Louis’ not done. He shakes his head, eyes glistening as he squeezes Liam’s hands so tight his knuckles pale to snow.</p>
<p>“No,” Louis mutters. “No, Liam, you don’t get it. Back then, Zayn was someone else. The Zayn that kissed you, the Zayn that held you, the Zayn that <em> left </em> you, that Zayn loved you because he’d never tried to love anyone else. This Zayn loves you because he wants to, because you’re you, because he’s seen the world and decided the only person that matters in it is you.”</p>
<p>Liam’s crying.</p>
<p>“And you,” he tries. “Also you. And Harry, and Niall.”</p>
<p>Louis smiles sadly, taking Liam’s face in his hands and brushing his thumbs across his cheeks. In this moment, he’s the most beautiful thing Liam has ever seen.</p>
<p>“And us,” Louis amends. “But Liam, the point is you don’t have to try anymore. You don’t have to regret anymore. You don’t have to dream anymore. Because we’re right here.”</p>
<p>He kisses Liam on his left cheek, then his right. Then his forehead, then his nose. And then, finally, he kisses his lips, breathing life into him so pure that for a moment it’s almost like they never died.</p>
<p>His hand slips down until it’s pressed firm against Liam’s chest, right over his heart.</p>
<p>“I’m right here,” Louis whispers. “I’m not going anywhere.”</p>
<p>Liam shatters, shuddering with the force of the sob that tears through his lips as he pulls Louis tight against him, wrapping his arms around his waist as Louis brushes his fingers through Liam’s hair and tucks his face in his neck.</p>
<p>“We’re not going anywhere, Liam.”<br/><br/></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> the world is changed </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> because you are made of ivory </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> and gold. the curves </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> of your lips rewrite history. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> - R. Zamora Linmark (The Importance of Being Wilde at Heart) </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>more the war like</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>the carnival bears set free</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Liam used to have this theory, okay.</p>
<p>It was about stars. He’d count the number of spotlights there were at every show, and then he’d close his eyes and imagine that number multiplied by a thousand. When he opened them, there’d be tens of thousands of blinking stars in front of him, cast from cellphones and cameras and the night sky.</p>
<p>So Liam’s theory, you see, was that because there were always so many lights around them, maybe they lived in their own galaxy and didn’t even know it. Maybe they were all stars, surrounded by clusters of burning bright others, and they spun around in swirls of explosive supernova beauty.</p>
<p>And as time went on, Liam got to thinking even more. And the more he thought, the more it became clear: each star was made up of more than one person, because this galaxy of over seven billion, well, it wouldn’t be a galaxy if it had seven <em> billion </em> stars. The Milky Way only has roughly a hundred million, so how could seven billion possibly work?</p>
<p>Well, each star is made up of varying amounts of people. Soulmates, if you will - platonic, romantic, familial, every kind of bond imaginable. And Liam, the star that Liam is a part of, it has five points, five boys that share a heart.</p>
<p>So that’s Liam’s theory. That’s what he’s thinking as he strolls along the edge of the woods that circles the vast fields they call their yard, the barren grass stretching on until it reaches their house, tall and odd and quite frankly terribly ugly, but theirs. And it makes Liam smile, the idea that something is theirs, belonging to the five of them and the five of them only, this something that no one else will ever know.</p>
<p>Zayn, walking beside him, is silent too. Liam wonders what he’s thinking, but if he asked Zayn would just smile and shake his head. So instead he takes Zayn’s hands, threading their fingers together like keys into locks and holding on tight.</p>
<p>Zayn turns his head and smiles at him. Liam’s chest goes warm and gooey, like marshmallows sinking into hot chocolate.</p>
<p>“I love you,” he says, because he can, and beneath the looming grey sky Zayn smiles, his eyes twinkling just like the star Liam shares with him.</p>
<p>“I love you too,” Zayn answers. “I love you forever.”</p>
<p>Liam reaches out and pulls him closer, pressing his hands into Zayn’s hips. Zayn kisses him without hesitation, his hands on Liam’s shoulders as they sway in the wind that blows the leaves wild, and Liam slides his hands up under Zayn’s soft sweater, relishing in the feeling of muscle and skin beneath his fingers, absent of bone.</p>
<p>They don’t say anything else. They don’t need to.</p>
<p>Stars don’t speak.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>and your love is anemic</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>and i can’t believe</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I wanna call Taylor,” Harry says, and everything comes crashing down around them.</p>
<p>Something in Liam’s chest caves in on itself, collapsing into a billion broken fragments that pierce his lungs and make it hard to breathe. But he says nothing, clenching his fists under the table and holding it all in.</p>
<p>Zayn reaches over and takes his hand.</p>
<p>“I know we’re… new,” Harry tries, eyes shining with tears as he gestures at nothing in desperation. “But Taylor’s my best friend. And I love her. And I love you. And I want her to know.”</p>
<p>Liam can’t breathe.</p>
<p>The rain slams against the windows and rattles the glass so hard it sounds like rusty wheels on a train track. The ones in Liam’s head are running wild, screeching and squealing and screaming as Liam tries desperately to steer them back to a station, any station.</p>
<p><em>“Please,”</em> Harry croaks. His eyes have shattered into tears, slipping down his cheeks in rivulets of ghostly nothingness. He hangs his head, his hands clenched in his lap and his tangled hair hiding his face.</p>
<p>“I…” Louis starts, then swallows, then licks his lips and starts again. “I wanna call my sisters.”</p>
<p>His hands are shaking so badly the table is shaking with them, so Louis pulls them back and fists them in his hair instead. Niall drops his face into his hands, utterly silent despite the tears slipping through his fingers.</p>
<p>Liam can’t goddamn breathe.</p>
<p>“I know it’s crazy,” Louis rasps, blinking back tears of his own. His eyes flick to the side, something like a smile flitting across his face before crashing down as his eyes drop to the table once again. “I know we seem so breakable right now. But like… I miss them. I miss a lot of people, actually.”</p>
<p>Niall inhales sharply. He stands without so much as a glance their way and leaves, his chair slamming into the wall behind him.</p>
<p>The crash rings in Liam’s ears long after they fall back into silence.</p>
<p>“Don’t you think it’s weird?” Louis tries, looking up at them. “Nobody has called us. Nobody has tried to find us. We’re fucking superstars and we all disappeared together, and nobody has been looking. <em> No one </em> is looking for us.”</p>
<p>Liam can’t goddamn <em> breathe. </em></p>
<p>“Isn’t that weird?” Louis whispers. “Zayn? Isn’t that weird?”</p>
<p>Zayn stares down at the table and says nothing.</p>
<p><em> Oh, </em> Liam thinks, heart stopping in his chest. <em> Oh. </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>that you couldn’t see it</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>coming from me</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Death is a funny thing. Everyone thinks they know her, but the truth is no one has ever met death, not really. So how could they possibly know her?</p>
<p>But Liam, he’s faced her. They all have, apparently.</p>
<p>The scars on Harry’s wrists. Always so deep, so red, so impossible to stitch closed, and yet here Harry is. Alive. Breathing. His heart steady beneath Liam’s fingers, hands warm against Liam’s palms.</p>
<p>And Zayn and Niall, who have both wasted away to skin and bone, and yet remain soft to the touch, pulses real and bruising under Liam’s thumbs. Zayn’s sad eyes and their black bags, Niall’s frantic motions towards any sort of mess, the way sleep has become someone Zayn used to know and cleanliness has become Niall’s only friend.</p>
<p>And Louis, with his shaking hands and invisible friends. Shouting at nobody and throwing punches at the walls with bloodshot eyes. The loss of the high and the descent into the bottomless dark, the loneliness that invades his every move.</p>
<p>The loneliness that Liam sees now, walking beside Louis while the clouds darken and the sun cowers behind them. Liam wonders when the sun began to hide from them.</p>
<p>“Is that so wrong?” Louis mutters, hands twisting in and out of fists. “That I’m angry? I’m always angry.”</p>
<p>His brow furrows and he turns his head towards the woods and away from Liam. He stops, mouth dipping into a frown, and Liam grabs his hand to pull him on.</p>
<p>“Why’re you holding my hand?” Louis says. “You never hold my hand. You can’t hold my hand. Only Eleanor can hold my hand, remember?”</p>
<p>Liam closes his eyes, pushing all the air out of his lungs in one giant gust of wind.</p>
<p>“I’m not Harry,” he grits out. “I’m Liam.”</p>
<p>Louis looks confused. He blinks seven times, then shakes his head, knocking his hand against it.</p>
<p>When he speaks again, he sounds tired.</p>
<p>“Why does everyone hate them so much, Harry?” He says mournfully. “Why does everyone say those things? Why do they hate us?”</p>
<p>Liam sighs. He stops, unfazed when Louis tumbles into his chest.</p>
<p>“I’m Liam, Louis,” he murmurs. “And I don’t know.”</p>
<p>Louis shakes his head. He pushes himself up, stumbling backwards and nearly tripping over a mound of raised dirt. In the grass, Liam spots the tiniest bit of plastic.</p>
<p>“They should be nice,” Louis mumbles, wiping at his eyes now. Liam looks back up at him, watching as he wobbles on weak knees and reaching out to grasp his arms. “They’re our fans. They should love us. They should love our friends. They should be nice.”</p>
<p>Liam sighs. He kisses Louis’ forehead, trying to breathe his love through Louis’ skin so maybe his mind will finally feel it.</p>
<p>But Louis’ mind is crowded, and wonky. The wires are all wrong, the tracks all crossed. The trains don’t stop, they just run on and on forever, until they crash into one another and Louis goes spastic, then limp.</p>
<p>Louis’ mind is fucked up. And no amount of Liam’s love can fix that.</p>
<p>Still, he tries.</p>
<p>“They should,” he answers. “And I love you, if that helps.”</p>
<p>Louis blinks. Once, twice, three, seven times.</p>
<p>“Liam?” He whispers, and Liam starts crying.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” he rasps, smiling even as Louis fusses over him, his eyes bouncing around Liam’s body and his hands pressing gentle circles into Liam’s cheeks. “Yeah, I’m here.”</p>
<p>Louis kisses him.</p>
<p>Liam lets him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>and i still feel that rush in my veins</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>it twists my head just a bit too thin</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Liam doesn’t know how to breathe anymore.</p>
<p>Even back then, Liam didn’t know. He never learned. Every day he held his breath, until the darkness came and he exhaled. The world blew on with the wind and Liam stayed chained to the bottom of the ocean, surrounded by endless shadows that always stared and never came closer.</p>
<p>Liam remains drowning. Even when the boys kiss him, breathing their precious air into his lungs, Liam can only hold on to that bubble of happiness for so long.</p>
<p>The others don’t get that. They all have their own kinds of pain; Harry is lost in a forest of thorns where the ground shakes and shifts beneath his feet every ten seconds. Niall lives in a valley that’s actually a canyon, stuck at the bottom of a cliff he can never climb and left to let the dirt smudge his skin until he dies ravaging himself on poisonous berries. Louis is swept up in tornadoes and stranded at the tops of mountains, high on the crisp air until an avalanche buries him in regret and headaches. And Zayn wanders a prairie that never changes or ceases, searching desperately for flowers amongst the dead grass that towers over him like dread and bad omens.</p>
<p>Their pain is so much heavier than Liam’s. Liam can handle his pain if it means he can still make his way to them across the ocean floor.</p>
<p>The sea, at least, is consistent. Liam can see the shadows out of the corner of his eye, can feel them pressing against his skull and begging to be let out of their cages, but he keeps them back. He smiles, rocking back and forth with his knees held to his chest by his arms and hands.</p>
<p>Harry is laughing. His hair is braided, flowers woven into it, and Zayn is grinning at him, pressing kisses to his blushing cheeks as they paint the walls of the third floor. They’re painting the flowers in Harry’s hair, Liam realizes, counting sunflowers, irises, roses, bluebells, and forget-me-nots in the luscious mural they’ve managed to pull from nothing in only a few hours.</p>
<p>Outside, thunder rumbles. In Liam’s head, the sea becomes restless, waves rippling across the surface with each crack of lightning, jerking him back and forth by his chains as he searches desperately for something to hold on to. The shadows leer at him, cackling as another bolt of lightning rips across the sky outside Harry’s window, and in Liam’s head, a hurricane explodes into life and renders him helpless to the sea’s will.</p>
<p>“Liam.”</p>
<p>He can’t feel his hands, but he can see how violently they’re shaking. He tries to still them by fisting them in his hair, but it doesn’t work. It only makes his head jerk around, and Liam can feel his brain slowly suffocating as it rattles around within his skull.</p>
<p>“Liam.”</p>
<p>Fuck.</p>
<p>Fuck.</p>
<p>Fuck.</p>
<p>Fuck fuck fuck -</p>
<p>
  <em> “Liam.” </em>
</p>
<p>Someone’s hands are on his arms. Thin spindly fingers pull him upwards, inky skin bleeding into the ocean around him as he breaks through the surface, gasping against Zayn’s lips.</p>
<p>“Hush, sweetheart,” Harry mumbles in his ear. “Hush now.”</p>
<p>Liam inhales so sharply his vision goes white for a moment. When he comes back to, his head is still spinning like a carousel and Zayn’s hands are pulling his own from his hair.</p>
<p>“I can’t -” Liam tries, then erupts into a volcano of coughs, killing all the flowers in Harry’s unravelled hair and all the life in Zayn’s eyes. “I can’t <em> breathe </em> -”</p>
<p>“I know,” Zayn answers, voice soft and kind, just like the rest of him. “I know. You had a panic attack, babe.”</p>
<p>God, Liam is so tired of that phrase.</p>
<p>“Oh,” he says, feeling small. He pulls his knees to his chest again, hugging them close and pressing his head into his arms. “Oh.”</p>
<p>Harry kisses his head. Zayn runs his fingers through Liam’s hair.</p>
<p>A moment later, something soft is shoved into his arms. Liam looks up just the tiniest bit to see Alexandria, her stupid smile all bright and horrible and lovely. Liam stares at her.</p>
<p>“Liam?” Harry says. “Are you okay?”</p>
<p>Liam bursts into tears.</p>
<p>“Oh,” Harry mumbles, reaching out to pat Liam’s head. “Oh dear.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>all those people</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>in those old photographs</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>i’ve seen are dead</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ten years.</p>
<p>Ten years of fighting, loving, screaming, and here they are. The five of them, the long dead boyband that no one ever really knew, the world’s brightest five point star.</p>
<p>Their bed is in what Liam still calls Harry’s room in his head. It’s big and white and rumpled, and it’s grown to fit them all, making room for Liam to lie in the middle while Louis and Niall curl around him on one side and Zayn and Harry hold him from the other.</p>
<p>They’re bony and cold and shaking, and Liam loves them so much.</p>
<p>“So… you’re sad.”</p>
<p>Liam looks down at Niall’s head on his chest, at the calloused fingers tracing circles around his heart. Louis snorts, tucking his face into Niall’s neck from behind.</p>
<p>“It’s called depression, Niall, don’t be a fucking idiot.”</p>
<p>Niall grumbles some cuss words Louis’ way, but accepts his kiss of somewhat sincere apology behind his ear. Harry laughs, always full of gold even on the greyest days, and Zayn tugs him closer by the hand, kissing each of his knuckles.</p>
<p>Liam feels a smile flicker onto his face. He shrugs, shoulders bouncing up Niall and Zayn’s heads. But he keeps them loose, letting himself move.</p>
<p>It’s comfortable. It’s easy.</p>
<p>Liam’s missed easy.</p>
<p>“Yeah, that’s part of it,” he answers, smiling again when Zayn kisses his jaw. “It’s like, I’m chained to the bottom of the ocean. And there are all these shadows everywhere that just stare at me, and they’re all grinning like they want to consume me, pull me into the sand. And then I can’t breathe, and the hurricanes come, and I panic until I forget who I am for no reason.”</p>
<p>Harry hums. He looks far away again, which he does sometimes. He travels, even as they never leave, wandering the world in his head and following Louis to wherever the voices are. Liam wonders what it’s like, the world in Harry’s head, and if there are butterflies.</p>
<p>“And there are trains,” Liam murmurs. “Endless trains. They all move at different speeds, and they follow my every thought. My brain doesn’t spiral, even though I think the tracks run over an abyss. They just… stop. There are stations, and they stop there.”</p>
<p>Zayn closes his eyes, shifting his head so his ear rests just above Liam’s heart. A smile flits across his face, and Liam finds himself hoping that he knows it’s him Liam’s heart beats for.</p>
<p>“What are the stations?” Niall pipes up. Liam turns his head, meets his beautiful blue eyes, and smiles. He shrugs again, the tension seeping out of his shoulders.</p>
<p>God.</p>
<p>“Make sure you and Zayn have eaten,” he says, heart twinging when he sees Niall’s bright eyes dim. “Make sure Harry’s wearing short sleeves. Make sure Louis is awake and sober.”</p>
<p>Niall smiles sadly. Louis mumbles something Liam can’t hear into his unkempt hair, and Harry reaches for Zayn, who remains perfectly still.</p>
<p>“Make sure we’re taken care of, basically,” Louis echoes, sounding hollow. “So then who takes care of you? When do you take care of you?”</p>
<p>Liam shrugs.</p>
<p>Everything is warm and he can feel the rain on his face. The shadows cower from the daylight shining through the waves. The surface is so close.</p>
<p>“I don’t, really.”</p>
<p>Harry inhales sharply. Liam finds himself smiling, breaking his fingers through the sea glass. Sweet air kisses his fingertips, and Liam smiles wider.</p>
<p>“Then come to us,” Niall says, as if it’s that simple. “We’ll take care of you.”</p>
<p>And then maybe it is. Maybe it’s always been that simple.</p>
<p>Liam opens his mouth to answer when Zayn suddenly speaks, gentle like the wind on Liam’s glowing cheeks.</p>
<p>“What if the trains crash?”</p>
<p>Liam smiles, brushing his fingers through Zayn’s hair. Zayn breathes in, letting it out with a shudder.</p>
<p>“Then the hurricanes come,” he says, and <em> beams </em> as eight hands reach for his wrists and pull him into sunlight, into the warm arms of four beautiful, lovely boys. Liam’s boys.</p>
<p>“I love the rain,” Harry muses, eyes still caught somewhere else. “But I think I’d like some sunlight, now.”</p>
<p>Zayn hums, Niall laughs, and Louis answers, “Me too.”</p>
<p>Liam smiles, and something changes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>and in the end</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>i’d do it all again</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>i think you’re my best friend</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Liam doesn’t know where their clocks went. Either they all disappeared, or they’ve never had any.</p>
<p>So Liam doesn’t know what time it is. But he knows it’s dark out, and he can still see the stars twinkling and the moon shining full and bright, so none of them should be rising from their warm bed anytime soon.</p>
<p>The door closes behind a silhouette as Liam blinks his eyes open. He can’t really see, but he knows the bodies beside him well enough to know it’s Louis’ scabbed knuckles against his side and Harry’s thin fingers curled around his wrist. Liam gently untangles them from him and shuffles out of bed, smiling at the third body on the bed as he shuts the door behind him.</p>
<p>Downstairs, the record player in the living room is crooning <em> Stay </em>by Rihanna on repeat. The air is too cold for it to be summer anymore, and Liam finds himself wishing he’d taken the time to find a sweater before wandering down here in only some grey sweatpants that are too small to be his and too big to be Louis’.</p>
<p>He wonders where Zayn is. He’s been sleeping better lately, though not always, and Liam had almost thought they were past this. But he can hear a ghost scuffling around in their kitchen, so he guesses not.</p>
<p>He stops in the doorway. There, in only boxers and a grey and white sweatshirt whose sleeves are too long, is Niall, sunken cheeks illuminated by the refrigerator light.</p>
<p>Oh.</p>
<p>The bathroom smells like sick. Niall closes the fridge without taking anything out and moves towards the counter, pressing his palms against it and muttering something to himself before turning back towards the fridge and opening it again so wide it won’t close on its own.</p>
<p>This is when he notices Liam, and smiles in a way that suggests the world is ending.</p>
<p>And, Liam supposes, it is.</p>
<p>“Why’re you up?” Niall asks, his voice hoarse. He needs tea, Liam decides, and moves forward to make him some without thinking. Niall just keeps smiling at him in that twisted, dead way, his ribs just the tiniest bit too visible from beneath his skin.</p>
<p>“Thought you were Zayn,” Liam answers, pouring honey into the chamomile and handing the cup with the glass kitten at the bottom to Niall. He brushes Niall’s hair back from his forehead, kisses the hot skin there, and feels his brow furrow when Niall doesn’t reach up to pull him closer, his hands instead clenched tight around the shaking teacup as he stares down into its depths.</p>
<p>“Of course you did,” Niall mumbles. “You always do.”</p>
<p>Liam’s brow wrinkles further. He slides his hands down Niall’s arms and onto his hips, tugging him against Liam’s chest. Niall goes willingly, but doesn’t look at him, taking a sip of tea and then dropping it in the sink with a loud crash that makes Liam flinch violently.</p>
<p>“Niall?”</p>
<p>Niall’s grim smile morphs into a sneer. He shoves Liam away, turning and heading for the door.</p>
<p>“You always look for Zayn. Louis and Harry look for each other. Why would you ever look for me?”</p>
<p>Oh.</p>
<p>Liam feels as sick as the bathroom still smells.</p>
<p>“Because we love you,” he answers truthfully, wringing his hands and taking a few steps closer to Niall. “Because you’re ours.”</p>
<p>Niall’s face darkens. Liam’s never seen it do that before.</p>
<p>It scares him.</p>
<p>“I am <em> no one’s,”</em> Niall seethes, fists clenching. “And I’m <em> certainly </em> not <em> yours.”</em></p>
<p>One of Liam’s trains stops at a new station.</p>
<p>
  <em> Make sure Niall is okay. </em>
</p>
<p>“Why do you say that?” He asks, stepping forward only once. He keeps his hands out and open, but doesn’t reach for Niall, who is stiff like a statue and fuming like a fire.</p>
<p>“Because you are Zayn’s and he is yours,” Niall hisses. “Because Harry is Louis’ and Louis is Harry’s. Because everyone in this fucking world can give a million reasons they know you all love each other, and <em> nobody </em> in this fucking world can look at me and think <em> queer. </em> Because for all the conspiracy theories out there about you and Zayn and Harry and Louis, there are none about me. They’re there for Zayn and Harry, and they’re there for Zayn and Louis, and they’re there for all four of you in whatever way you put it, but nobody ever stopped for a second to think that maybe I’d ever be anything more than your <em> best friend.”</em></p>
<p>Oh.</p>
<p>“You are our best friend,” Liam murmurs. “But you’re also everything else.”</p>
<p>Niall just stares at him. Liam tries again.</p>
<p>“We love you.”</p>
<p>Niall scoffs. He shakes his head, sagging forward and catching himself against the door frame. When he looks up at Liam, his bright blue eyes have dimmed down to embers. His smile is like a corpse’s: staged, dead, <em> wrong. </em></p>
<p>“You don’t love me,” Niall rasps. “You never loved me. You just love when I’m laughing, and the fact that I give you your perfect little happily ever after. You love that I make you whole, but not the pieces I give you. You don’t love anything about <em> me.”</em></p>
<p>
  <em> Oh. </em>
</p>
<p>Liam’s heart breaks open.</p>
<p>“We love <em> everything </em> about you,” he says, and Niall huffs out a laugh. Liam shakes his head, blinking back tears as he rushes forward and grasps Niall’s arms, kissing him hard.</p>
<p>“Yes, we love it when you laugh. Yes, we love that you make us whole. But god, Niall, do you honestly think that’s all we love?”</p>
<p>Niall looks up at him.</p>
<p>
  <em> Yes. </em>
</p>
<p>Liam kisses him again.</p>
<p>“We love you when you’re crying.” Again. “We love you when you’re screaming.” Again. “We love you when you’re dancing.” Again.</p>
<p>Something salty drips into Liam’s mouth, and he pulls back to see Niall’s face is streaked with tears, his eyes burning an ugly red. Liam holds him tighter, pressing their foreheads together and rocking them back and forth.</p>
<p>“You loved Zayn when he left us,” he whispers. “You loved Louis when he went mad. You loved Harry when he gave up. You loved <em> me, </em> when I couldn’t breathe.”</p>
<p>Niall blinks. Liam smiles.</p>
<p>“You loved us when we hated ourselves,” he murmurs. “And we’re gonna love you the same.”</p>
<p>Niall’s eyes spark to life again.</p>
<p>“Really?” He asks, voice small. “Do you promise?”</p>
<p>Liam takes his hand. He pulls him tight against his chest and sways, hoping the sun will rise soon.</p>
<p>“I promise,” he says, closing his eyes as Niall sniffles into his neck. “I promise that even when the world ends, we’re still going to love you.”</p>
<p>Niall laughs. It’s like a rainstorm in a drought, like the bells on Christmas day, like a million wishes coming true. And Liam loves him.</p>
<p>As promised.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>don’t you know that the kids aren’t all</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>kids aren’t alright</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The others trickle down in their own time. Harry comes laughing, throwing his arms around Niall and kissing him hard, his wrists bare and beautiful in all their old scarred perfection. Niall grins into Harry’s mouth, swaying against him as the house bursts with Oh Honey’s <em> I Love You Will Still Sound The Same. </em></p>
<p>Next, Louis comes trudging down the stairs, pulling a drowsy Zayn behind him. Harry kisses them both good morning before spinning back into the kitchen, flurrying about in between flipping pancakes, mixing chocolate milk, and kissing Niall against the counter, almost like they’re teenagers again.</p>
<p>At the table, Louis mumbles to the empty chair next to him, his head in his arms. Zayn runs gentle fingers through Louis’ hair, smiling ever so softly when Louis’ eyes slip closed and he starts to hum. And Liam smiles as he watches them, reaching out to grasp Zayn’s hand.</p>
<p>Zayn turns and smiles at him. His eyes are lit up like the star they make, and even Louis is grinning now, his own eyes twinkling as he looks past whoever his head’s conjured up to see Niall and Harry still making out as the pancakes bubble and burn behind them, Niall now on the counter with Harry’s hands on his hips and his own in Harry’s hair.</p>
<p>Louis whoops, and they both flip him off simultaneously. A laugh bursts out of Zayn like an iris from the cold winter ground, and Liam feels all the trains in his head come skidding to a stop.</p>
<p>Liam doesn’t need to think anymore. This is all he needs to know.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>i’m yours</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>when it rains it pours</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>stay thirsty like before</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Liam’s head is full of photographs in chaotic planned collages.</p>
<p>Every morning he wakes to Zayn’s smile behind his eyelids, and Niall’s eyes in beautiful bursts of color. Louis’ hands appear around cigarettes and coffee mugs in his mind’s eye, and Harry’s messy flower buns stay tangled in his skull for days.</p>
<p>Now, covered in mud and grass stains and dewdrops, they look like his photographs. Zayn is laughing like the world isn’t falling to pieces, and Louis has got his hands fisted in Zayn’s hair, pulling him into increasingly sloppy kisses, their eyes in upside down smiles and their lips shaped like crescent moons. They roll around on the ground, play fighting and touching everywhere, and Liam smiles as he watches them, squeezing the two hands in his.</p>
<p>The sky is grey and crying. Niall’s eyes keep flicking towards the dirt painting his skin in perfect Pollock, but Liam calms him with a kiss.</p>
<p>“I love you,” he says, careful not to let go of Harry’s hand, and Niall smiles. Harry just giggles, sitting up and grinning down at them with his sludge-streaked face, flower stems all bent and broken in his hair.</p>
<p>“This is amazing, isn’t it?” He babbles. “Real lovely.”</p>
<p>Niall chokes on a laugh. Liam kisses him again.</p>
<p>“Not so bad, yeah,” Niall answers, and Harry <em> beams. </em>Liam reaches up and slides his hand into Harry’s disgusting hair, a grin stretching across his face as he pulls Harry down into a kiss.</p>
<p>“We’re all bloody mad,” Louis pipes up from Zayn’s lap. Zayn snorts, kissing his jaw and smiling wide.</p>
<p>“You are, maybe,” he says, and as Louis gasps in outrage, Liam realizes that this old friend in his chest is named happiness.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>don’t you know that the kids aren’t all</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>kids aren’t alright</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In another life, Liam could fall in love in a coffee shop. He could walk into a Starbucks, bump into a cute girl, and marry her two years later under an arch of white roses. He could love her with just enough of his heart, and love his children with the rest of it. And he could die in his sleep at eighty-four with the knowledge that something had always been missing but not the knowledge of what.</p>
<p>In another life, Liam could walk into a coffee shop. And everyone would glance up at the little bell, and then they’d look down again. And it wouldn’t matter if Liam was wearing sunglasses or a mask, because nobody would know him and nobody would care.</p>
<p>In this life, Liam is stranded in the bathroom of a grocery store he’s forgotten the name of because a girl he’s never seen before stared at him too long and too hard.</p>
<p>“She’s not gonna follow us in here,” Harry says softly, drawing Liam’s attention away from the door. Liam instead trains his eyes on Harry’s scars, the ones held gently in Liam’s hands and barely healed over. He’s been doing so good lately, which means it’ll all come crashing down again soon.</p>
<p>“I know that,” Liam lies. He brushes his thumbs across Harry’s scars and kisses them each once. Harry’s mouth twists into something Liam guesses could be called a smile, if smiles were grim and hopeless and full of reminisced loss.</p>
<p>“Do you?” Harry murmurs. “Do you really?”</p>
<p>Liam grits his teeth. He’s had this argument so many times before.</p>
<p>“I’m just scared,” he says, dropping Harry’s thin wrists before he breaks them into pieces. “Just worried.”</p>
<p>Harry hums. He doesn’t seem entirely <em> here, </em> not really, but then again he never is. He shuffles around in the stall until he’s facing the toilet, leaning back against Liam’s chest and closing his eyes.</p>
<p>“You don’t have to be, Li,” he mumbles. “I’ll protect you.”</p>
<p>Liam laughs, but it comes out strangled. He wraps his hands arounds Harry and hugs him close, trying to ignore how close the walls are, how cold the floor is. He reminds himself he’s not in solitary, he’s in an ocean, and water, unlike cement, is something you can swim through.</p>
<p>“How?” He asks, meaning it to be a joke. But Harry squeezes his hands tight, holds them like precious treasure in his own, and gives his answer like a promise, like an oath.</p>
<p>“With my life,” he swears. “With my body. With my love. With everything I have, and then some.”</p>
<p>Liam swallows. He pretends his heart is actually beating his chest, just for a moment, and then reminds himself you can’t be killed twice.</p>
<p>Harry shifts in between his legs. He twists and turns until he’s wrapped around Liam wholly, chest to chest, face to face. He puts his cold hands on Liam’s cheeks and smiles, pressing their foreheads together.</p>
<p>“We’re gonna be okay, Liam,” he murmurs. “You know that, right? We’re gonna be okay.”</p>
<p>Liam closes his eyes. When Harry kisses him, he doesn’t fight it.</p>
<p><em> You’re okay, </em> his mind chants, though his heart thumping wildly says otherwise. <em> You’re okay, and you always will be. </em></p>
<p><em> I know, </em> Liam tries to answer, but his voice is muffled. The walls are closing in, and the shadows are slithering around his convulsing body. <em> I know. Please, I know. </em></p>
<p>The shadows sneer. Their tendrils slip into his lungs like smoke, and Liam finds himself gasping, pulling air from Harry’s mouth like life support.</p>
<p><em> I’m not okay, </em> his heart mutters, like a broken beat. <em> I’m not okay. </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>and sometimes i just want to sit around</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>and gaze at my shoes</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There are hazards that come with loving more people than you’re supposed to too much. Hazards like raging undiagnosed mental health issues, rampant hate comments on every social media platform, and exhausting convoluted fake girlfriend schemes carried out with childhood best friends.</p>
<p>That kind of shit is born from chaos and panic, from hatred and fear in loved ones’ eyes. And so when Liam and Harry stumble through the door on shaky legs, Louis is on them in an instant, crashing down from the banister and knocking them to the floor.</p>
<p>Niall and Zayn aren’t far behind, falling over each other in their rush down the stairs. Niall slips and nearly plunges to his end, but Zayn catches him by the hand and tugs him down the rest of the way.</p>
<p>“Never fucking leave us again,” Louis mumbles into their shoulders. “Never ever ever.”</p>
<p>Zayn and Niall reach them in a frantic tumble, collapsing beside them and pulling them close. Zayn buries his face in Liam’s neck while Niall latches himself onto Harry’s back and Liam pretends he doesn’t feel the tears slipping down his collarbones.</p>
<p>“You were gone for seven fucking hours,” Zayn chokes, his fingers fisting themselves around Liam’s sweater, right over his heart. “The grocery store, for seven <em> fucking </em> hours.”</p>
<p>Liam grasps Zayn’s hand, gently dragging it from his chest and pressing it against his lips. Louis is muttering to someone who isn’t here again, but Harry is kissing his face everywhere anyway. And when Louis finally kisses him back, Harry sobs, heavy and deep. He allows himself to be cradled against Niall’s chest, stealing as much breath as he needs from Niall’s willing lungs.</p>
<p>“We thought you were never coming back,” Louis mumbles, staring down at his shaking hands. “Thought you’d left us here alone. Thought it was the old days.”</p>
<p>Liam shakes his head. He tugs Louis down against him too, smiling at the sound of Harry and Niall sniffling through laughter and kisses, holding each other tight.</p>
<p>“We’re gonna be okay,” he murmurs, brushing a hand through Louis’ hair. “We’re gonna be okay.”</p>
<p>Zayn laughs somewhat hysterically, warm breath blowing across Liam’s neck as he swallows. He goes limp in Liam’s arms, closing his eyes, and when Louis pulls his hand from Liam’s and holds Zayn’s with the care one might a crystal ball, he smiles.</p>
<p>“We better be,” he rasps. “After all this shit, we better be.”</p>
<p>Louis grins. His eyes keep flicking to the side, but he ignores whoever he sees in the corner. Instead, he whispers into Liam’s shirt, right against his heart.</p>
<p>“Yeah. But we love each other, right?”</p>
<p>Harry and Niall choose that moment to shuffle over, with Niall holding Louis from behind and Harry wrapping around Zayn with a smile.</p>
<p>“Duh,” Niall says, and Harry’s smile brightens to a beam around worthless words.</p>
<p>“Then we’ll be just fine.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>and let your dirty sadness fill me up</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>just like a balloon</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Liam fell in love with Zayn in between interviews and video games. Scrunched together in tour bus bunk beds and folded chest to chest in a greenroom. Through brushing hands and cracked lips, wilted roses and blooming irises, orange and purple and pink painting the sunset and sunrise outside their hotel room window, Liam Payne fell in love with Zayn Malik.</p>
<p>And it stays with him. Even now, as he traces the ink on Zayn’s skin with his finger, so familiar and old yet always new again, Liam loves Zayn.</p>
<p>Of all the facts in the universe, those three words seem the most true.</p>
<p>“What’re you thinking about?” Zayn asks, tucking his nose into Liam’s hair. A smile flickers across Liam’s face and he lets it, lifting his head to press their mouths together.</p>
<p>“You,” he answers, because the truth is now a friend of his, and Zayn smiles. He kisses Liam again, and the bed beneath them creaks as Liam shuffles closer, prompting Niall to roll over onto Louis, who huffs in his sleep. Liam watches as Harry mumbles drowsily, pawing at Louis’ chest and finding Niall’s hand instead, calming as it wraps around his fingers.</p>
<p>“And them?” Zayn murmurs, and Liam shakes his head, turning back to his first and forever love, the one that’s been with him since he was born, held in the truest confines of his mind and the deepest cells of his heart.</p>
<p>“Nah. Just you.”</p>
<p>Zayn hums, sinking deeper into the pillows. He closes his eyes, smiling as Liam kisses his forehead and settles down beside him. He runs his fingers through Liam’s hair, but doesn’t make any effort to pull him closer.</p>
<p>“You scared me today,” he confesses. “The both of you. You were gone so long I thought maybe you weren’t coming back.”</p>
<p>Liam wants to roll his eyes. <em> That’s stupid, </em> his brain scrambles in reassurance. <em> That’s stupid, I’ll always come back. I could never not come back. </em></p>
<p>But his mouth stays firmly shut, and Zayn continues, chapped lips spilling secrets Liam didn’t even know existed.</p>
<p>“I was so fucking scared for you.” <em> What? </em> “I know what you’re like in crowds; I hate when you go to the store. Why would you volunteer to go when you <em> know </em> you’ll have a panic attack in the bathroom? I mean, what the fuck are you - I don’t understand. Why would you -”</p>
<p>“Because I don’t wanna lose any more time with you,” Liam murmurs. “Because I can’t breathe in crowds, but when you’re gone it’s worse. It’s like - it’s like someone is clawing my lungs to shreds and then sewing them back together all wrong. And the store is just another excuse to spend time with you.”</p>
<p>Zayn sobs. He touches Liam’s face and kisses him with trembling lips, laughing when Liam kisses him back. Liam loves when Zayn laughs, but wishes it would happen in better ways, like when they’re not crying, maybe. Like when they’re close enough to touch but aren’t, and Zayn’s squeezing Alexandria against his stomach as he shakes and wheezes, eyes like wedding archways.</p>
<p>This, this laughter is torn apart and dying. It’s horrible and broken and awful, and yet Liam still wants to drink it all in like fine wine and bittersweet memories.</p>
<p>“I haven’t been that scared since I left,” Zayn blubbers, burying his face in Liam’s neck, and Liam’s breath catches in his throat. When Niall snuffles in his sleep, Liam reaches out and smoothes a hand down his chest, hoping none of them wake up just yet.</p>
<p>Zayn doesn’t like crying in front of people. Liam is the only exception, and still, Zayn always hides his face behind skin.</p>
<p>“I couldn’t fucking <em> breathe,”</em> Zayn rasps, his fingers fisted in Liam’s hair. “I get it, Leeyum. I walked away and suddenly there was no fucking <em> air.”</em></p>
<p>“Shhh,” Liam whispers, brushing a hand through Zayn’s hair. “Shhh, Zee.”</p>
<p>“I <em> love </em> you,” Zayn cries, and Liam’s world bursts into vibrant color. “I love you so fucking much.”</p>
<p>“I know,” he answers, soft. “And I love you too.”</p>
<p>Zayn laughs again. Liam closes his eyes.</p>
<p>“I never regretted you, y’know,” Zayn says. “But I never regretted leaving, either. I just - I regret losing you. Losing what we had, what we all had, taking it for granted. I should’ve just stuck it out.”</p>
<p>Liam kisses his neck. Their bodies fit together like puzzle pieces, even after so many years of trying to reshape themselves into a new jigsaw, into something unsolvable and therefore untouched.</p>
<p>“You weren’t happy,” Liam murmurs. “And that’s all we wanted for you, Zee. It’s okay that you didn’t find what you were looking for - you left because that’s where you thought it would be, and that’s okay. We don’t blame you for that.”</p>
<p>Zayn is quiet. Liam would think he was asleep, but he’s still shaking in Liam’s arms, so that can’t be right. Liam wants to smile, but he doesn’t think he could if he tried.</p>
<p>“Let go of the guilt, Zayn,” he whispers. “It’s not yours anymore. Let it go.”</p>
<p>Zayn doesn’t speak again. But he stays in Liam’s arms, letting himself fall asleep to the lull of Liam’s inconsistent heartbeat, so Liam still counts it as a win.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>and in the end</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>i’d do it all again</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>i think you’re my best friend</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Liam wakes up with Louis’ breath drying Zayn’s tear tracks on his collarbone. The sky is bright and blue, and Liam can feel every particle in his body humming at once. He shifts just enough to curl around Louis in return, kissing his forehead and smiling.</p>
<p>To think, ten years ago they were nothing. In only a decade, they’ve grown from strangers to <em> this, </em> to a fucking star. That’s amazing.</p>
<p>The record player is <em> singing, </em>almost as if the music is weaving its way into their veins, and Liam finds it astounding that Louis is still asleep against his chest. But he has no complaints, listening to the laughter echoing down the hall from downstairs.</p>
<p><em> The world’s so big and I’m so small, </em>Sasha Sloan croons from all the record players at once, and Liam smiles.</p>
<p>
  <em> The ocean’s deep as the sky is tall… </em>
</p>
<p>He closes his eyes, drinking it all in. The laughter, the warmth, the feeling. How undeniably happy he is, even if his heart is still caught thumping in his head.</p>
<p>
  <em> Sometimes I feel like I’m nobody at all… </em>
</p>
<p>Louis snuffles in his arms. Liam kisses his shoulder, and Louis presses closer, yawning. Liam smiles.</p>
<p>
  <em> But you make me feel like I’m someone, you do… </em>
</p>
<p>“Morning,” he rasps. Louis hums, tucking his cold nose against Liam’s neck, making him shiver.</p>
<p>“Mornin’,” Louis mumbles. “Li. Liam.”</p>
<p>
  <em> Cause I know I’m someone to you… </em>
</p>
<p>Liam’s heart swells. He grins, leaning down to peck Louis’ chapped lips. His breath is awful, but he’s smiling into Liam’s mouth, so Liam can’t really be bothered to care.</p>
<p>
  <em> Make me feel like I matter, you do… </em>
</p>
<p>“Shall we find the others?” Louis asks when he pulls away. His eyes still aren’t all the way open, but they’re shining, and Liam can see galaxies in them. He shakes his head, pushing Louis down into the mattress and hovering over him with a soft smile, pressing their foreheads together.</p>
<p>
  <em> Cause I know I matter to you… </em>
</p>
<p>“Not quite yet,” he murmurs, and leans in again.</p>
<p>
  <em> I know I matter to you… </em>
</p>
<p>Louis beams, wrapping his arms around Liam’s neck.</p>
<p>“I love you,” he says.</p>
<p>
  <em> I know I matter to you… </em>
</p>
<p>“I love you too,” Liam answers, Louis kisses him again, and all is right with the world.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>don’t you know that the kids aren’t all</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>kids aren’t alright</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When they finally traipse downstairs, the others are waiting in a kitchen that smells like pancakes and French toast and hot cocoa with cinnamon. The world is wide and bright at Liam’s fingertips, and he keeps his mind on the ground only by focusing on the feeling of Louis’ hand clasped in his, and how wonderfully familiar that feeling now is.</p>
<p>Zayn stands as soon as they come into view, dropping his fork with a clatter as he rushes to Liam, giving him a quick good morning kiss. Liam smiles at him, warm and soft, before giving a gentle nod of his head in Louis’ direction, whose stormy blue eyes are watching Zayn intently. Zayn nods, taking Louis’ face in his hands as Liam pulls back and heads for the kitchen.</p>
<p>“Hello, love,” Zayn whispers, dragging Louis into a deep kiss. Louis is smiling, his eyes twinkling almost like there’s not a million fake people behind them, and Zayn is golden around the edges, looking like he could melt away in Louis’ arms and have died happy.</p>
<p>Liam, meanwhile, wanders towards Harry, who’s dancing in the kitchen to the song Niall’s playing on the guitar - Delilah Montagu’s <em> Love Me with All Your Heart, </em>maybe. Harry flips three pancakes, pops open a jar of peanut butter, trills along to a high note and then bounds right into Liam’s arms, kissing him hard.</p>
<p>“Good morning!” He chirps, and Liam can’t help but grin at him in his stupid pink apron with the smiling cupcakes on the front. He squeezes Harry’s hips, kissing him one more time before letting him bounce around again, humming happily along to Niall’s morning rasp.</p>
<p>Liam settles beside Niall at the table, across from Zayn and Louis, who are completely lost in each other now. Niall offers him a smile, but it’s weaker, and Liam can guess well enough what he’s thinking.</p>
<p>
  <em> Make sure Niall is okay. </em>
</p>
<p>The train shudders to a stop beneath the blinking sign, and Liam obeys without hesitation, leaning over to kiss Niall’s cheek. He wants to hold his hand, but that would mean stopping the music, and none of them want that.</p>
<p>“You alright?” He asks, as soft as he can muster, and Niall blushes. He nods ever so subtly as he sings, and Liam smiles, kissing his cheek again.</p>
<p>“Good. Love you.”</p>
<p>Niall doesn’t answer, but Liam hears it in how he grins around the next note -</p>
<p>“Love me with all of your heart, as I love you…”</p>
<p>Life is good.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>i’m yours</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>when it rains it pours</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>stay thirsty like before</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This star of theirs is tumultuous.</p>
<p>Bad days become good days as suddenly as a wave washes away a sand castle, and their good days can burn slowly like trees in a wildfire, trying to stand strong but always falling down eventually.</p>
<p>That’s them. That’s their fucked-up peace of mind.</p>
<p>And now, they sit in silence. The weight of the heavy truth Zayn has unknowingly pressed into Liam’s hands is getting harder and harder to hold on his own. But this feeling in his chest is a sinking one, and Liam would never drag his boys down with him.</p>
<p>So when Harry asks, “Do you think the world is done ending yet?” and stares out the window with something almost like wonder in his eyes, Liam doesn’t answer. He glances towards Zayn, who shrugs, and then turns his gaze to the floor.</p>
<p>Louis snorts.</p>
<p>“We’re still here, aren’t we?”</p>
<p>Niall hums. His smile is an empty shell, no sunshine contained in his pearly whites anymore. Louis’ eyes flicker between them all nervously, and it makes Liam want to scream, so instead he closes his eyes.</p>
<p>Over the couch cushions, Zayn takes Liam’s hand.</p>
<p>“This isn’t Armageddon,” he says softly. “This isn’t a movie. It’s just our story, and it’s coming to an end.”</p>
<p>Louis rolls his eyes, as he always does when Zayn says something too profound for any normal human being to understand, and turns to Niall, who’s mindlessly strumming <em> Long Way Down </em>on his guitar. It makes some sort of dreadful regret seep into Liam’s bones and stay there, because they’re not supposed to know any of their own songs anymore, let alone play them, but he doesn’t mention it.</p>
<p>Instead, he mutters, “Do you think it’ll ever feel safe again?” Because the trains are getting closer and closer to crashing every day, and the hurricanes wander nearer and nearer to shore. Harry shrugs, falling back onto the carpet and throwing his arms out to the sides.</p>
<p>His hair comes to rest like a halo around his beautiful blushing face, and for a moment, Liam thinks that maybe they’re angels, and they’ve made it into heaven.</p>
<p>Then he remembers that the world is crumbling in their hands, and reminds himself that stars don’t have gods.</p>
<p>“Maybe not,” Harry finally answers. “Probably not. But nothing’s gonna hurt you, Liam. Nothing can reach us now.”</p>
<p><em> That’s not true, </em> Liam thinks. <em> Dead people can still burn. </em> But he just nods.</p>
<p>“Thanks, Harry,” he murmurs, and smiles. Zayn’s hand tightens around his until he can’t feel his fingers anymore. He doesn’t mind.</p>
<p>It’s not the right answer. Safe is an invaluable feeling to Liam, the one that he searches for when nothing else makes sense and the one he strives to inspire in others. But he knows that Harry lives in constant limbo, and welcomes cliffs as vantage points, not death traps. Harry is someone who lives, and Liam is someone who waits to die. That’s just how they are, how they’ve always been, and so Liam knows that what Harry means is that it doesn’t matter if it’s safe, because either way it’s happiness.</p>
<p>And Liam realizes, unsuddenly, that maybe they don’t have to be alright to be okay. They don’t have to be alright to be together, to be in love.</p>
<p>Liam’s been searching for his safe place for a long time. And to think -</p>
<p>They’ve always been right here.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>don’t you know that the kids aren’t all</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>kids aren’t alright</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>What is love?</p>
<p>Stupid question. Nobody knows. The only one who knows what love really feels like is you, and you alone. Love is not a concrete idea, it has no definition, it is a name that changes as you feel it for each new person.</p>
<p>Love, to Liam Payne, is defined simply -</p>
<p>Louis Tomlinson.</p>
<p>Harry Styles.</p>
<p>Niall Horan.</p>
<p>Zayn Malik.</p>
<p>Nothing more, nothing less. In his chest, those names live without boundaries, because their love in return is freedom on his lips and happiness in his hands, and he chases them wherever they run. They cast him out with every supernova and pull him back with every relapse, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.</p>
<p>We do not choose to spend our lives with people because of rings or dresses or cake. And sure, we say that all the time, but in all the celebration the meaning gets lost, and sometimes Liam thinks they forgot that love isn’t dancing in a hotel surrounded by fairy lights and smiling friends and family, love is coming home to find him crying through cigarette smoke on the balcony and dancing in your pitch black kitchen until he smiles.</p>
<p>Love is how Louis’ stubble feels against Liam’s cheek when he kisses him. Love is where Harry chooses to place his scarred wrists at the end of a long day, soft and trusting in Liam’s open palms. Love is what settles in his chest when Niall laughs at one of his half-hearted jokes. Love is when Zayn smiles at him, and every cell in Liam’s body catches fire.</p>
<p>Love is who they are when they’re together, and who they miss when they’re apart. Love is everything and nothing, and Liam could never explain it better.</p>
<p>He hopes fate is kind to them. He hopes peace will make her home with them. He hopes death keeps them as in love as life.</p>
<p>Liam hopes a lot of things. But he only knows one, at the end of the day -</p>
<p>His name is Liam Payne, and his soulmates’ names are Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, and Zayn Malik.</p>
<p>That knowledge isn’t safe. It is tumultuous and precarious and treacherous, and every day, they fall deeper into the dark unknown. Nothing is for certain.</p>
<p>But Liam’s love for them remains a steady light, and he trusts it to guide him forward, finally blowing out all the candles and closing his eyes.</p>
<p>He takes a step forward, and there is no floor to hold him. But four boys catch him in their hands, and at long last, Liam opens his heart, forgets his mind, and lets himself run.<br/><br/></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> i promise i will [love you]. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i promise [you] will be safe. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i promise life will go back to normal. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i promise i will take care of you. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i promise i know what i’m doing. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i promise i’m not crazy. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i promise i won’t [leave]. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i promise i will force the world to make sense again. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> - Dawn Kurtagich (The Dead House) </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>really please don't kill me &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Louis</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>every time your name, it leaves my lips,<br/>running still like words left unsaid.<br/>fire in my veins dream deeply love;<br/>remind me i’m alive.<br/>will you love me when my heartbeat stops?<br/>when my heartbeat stops, will you stay mine?<br/>for better or for worse<br/>will death be our last kiss, my love?<br/>will you promise me you’ll search for us?<br/>will you find me afterlife?</p>
<p>- Hailee Steinfeld (Afterlife)</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>lyrics taken from "Common" by ZAYN</p>
<p>PLAYLIST: common: 5) Louis</p>
<p>SONGS SUNG OR "WRITTEN" OR REFERENCED IN THIS CHAPTER:<br/>Saturn (Sleeping At Last)<br/>Finally // beautiful stranger (Halsey)</p>
<p>enjoy :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p>
  <em> let’s not be the type of people </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> who are afraid to live </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> because we might die. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> - Sarah Henstra (We Contain Multitudes) </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>always looking out</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>behind my fences</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Louis Tomlinson has built his life around stars.</p>
<p>He fell in love with the way they twinkled on the blackest nights, how he could always see them, even in the city. Drowned himself in their golden beams, buried himself in their sparkling ground, burned himself in their endless flame.</p>
<p>When he is eighteen, he falls in love with four boys. They are a constant presence, there even when the sun hides all the stars behind her fake happy blue, and Louis battles them every step of the way. And when the smoke clears, Zayn’s burns on his wrists and Liam’s waves in his tears and Niall’s gems in his eyes, he sees Harry’s love inked into his skin and falls to his knees.</p>
<p>Louis has no god. He believes in no higher power, is faithless as can be; his hands are calloused and blistered, and they shake when he thinks too much. The voices in his head haunt him, their figures sharp and beautiful as they dance around him, and Louis keeps their photographs behind his eyelids, hoping to always have them with him.</p>
<p>When he wakes, the stars are still shining. There are seven billion people in the world, and Louis is only one, yet he feels all their souls at his fingertips as he presses his hand over his heart, closes his eyes, and breathes.</p>
<p>Beside him, his four boys sleep. In the sky, the stars twinkle. The world ends, and Louis Tomlinson begins.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>always felt isolated</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>i don’t know why</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>i was so defensive</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They were born into fear, anger, and profit. Their bodies are built from wrinkled dollar bills and empty pill bottles, their hands mangled from broken drywall and shattered windows. Louis does not know the name of their species, but he knows <em> human </em> has never seemed quite right.</p>
<p>After all, how often do five humans fall in love?</p>
<p>Louis hasn’t slept in his own bedroom in months. It’s this thought that pulls him from the warmth of his boys’ arms, has him stumbling up the stairs to the fifth floor. He steadies himself against Zayn’s doorway, staring into this window of Zayn’s soul, his trauma made beautiful by vibrant paints and graceful hands.</p>
<p>From Zayn’s wall stare his own eyes, bright and blue and bloody mad, like they were in the old days. Liam’s are tired, still, but there’s a spark in them that Louis hasn’t seen in years. Niall’s are twinkling like those stars Louis loves so much, and they flicker like lightning in the rain, the most electrifying beauty Louis has ever known. And Harry, oh Harry, his eyes are sparkling rainforests and blooming wildflowers and the world shrunk into a pupil, and Louis can’t find Zayn in the mess of familiar faces, but he feels him in every stroke on these walls.</p>
<p>It’s the first glance he’s ever had into Zayn, so full and pure and unaltered, and it brings tears to his eyes as he stumbles away, staring at his closed door.</p>
<p>There’s nothing special in his own room, rotting on the fourth floor. Just fading memories of a life long gone, and the million regrets that follow.</p>
<p>So he makes his way back down to the third floor, where Harry’s bedroom rests, and smiles at the thought that it’s <em> their </em> bedroom now, all of theirs, his heart beating loud and harsh in his chest.</p>
<p>It still looks like Harry’s. He’s always had the most room in his heart for all of them, and so his room reflects his love for them, the way the walls are pale pink and all the sheets are blank white, like a canvas for Zayn to bleed onto. There are cardigans and pajama pants and sweaters strewn about the floor, scattered like the photographs in Niall’s room, and candles burn day and night, filling the room with vanilla and cinnamon. It’s sickening, and everything about it makes Louis want to kiss him more, somehow.</p>
<p>And they sleep there, the five of them, together. And that, Louis thinks, is the true miracle of Harry’s bedroom - it is <em> theirs, </em> as Harry is <em> theirs, </em> and Louis’ heart burns at the thought.</p>
<p>He tears his eyes from his boys, forces himself to move downwards, towards Niall’s bedroom. The door is open, as Niall’s mind always is, and Louis takes in the photographs and stolen clothes and blue, blue, blue, the way Niall buries himself in a sea of their love and lets himself drown in its tragedy for hours, not once emerging for any kind of air. It gets Louis thinking, maybe he should breathe the air into Niall’s lungs on his own, pulling him close enough to feel their hearts beat in time with each other, let his love pour into Niall’s veins and make its home there.</p>
<p>But then, what love would he have left for Liam? Beautiful, careful, terrifying Liam, the strong one, the brave one, the one Louis screams back against at three a.m. and then kisses like the world is ending, because it is. The one Louis cries in the arms of as if Liam’s gentle hands on his body can make up for all the people who have touched him roughly, their rabid mouths infecting Louis’ fragile skin with bruises.</p>
<p>And Liam’s bedroom is as gentle as he is, glowing with every color imaginable and full of memories and soft things, the mirror image of the boy who used to sleep there, used to dream there, used to cry there; it is home and love and<em> safety, </em> and Louis lets the tears slip down his cheeks as he holds his mouth closed hard, refusing to sob when there is so much to smile for.</p>
<p>Eleanor is standing by the front door. The record player croons out the opening notes of SafetySuit’s <em> Never Stop, </em>the wedding version of course, and Louis settles criss-cross on the floor in front of the stained glass mahogany door that guards them from the world burning outside.</p>
<p>He waits. The sun rises. The stars disappear.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>i’ll find a way</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>to let you in</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Louis does not believe in soulmates. He is not nearly in love enough with love, not the way the others are. Still, he stares down at the ink he chose to marr his skin with and thinks that maybe some people are just meant to find each other.</p>
<p>Zayn wanders downstairs just as the orange and pink sky turns to gold, spilling through the windows in sparkling trails of pure happiness. But Louis will not be tricked by the sky. Louis is not happy.</p>
<p>It’s hard to explain, the way his emotions flicker like lights. He thinks maybe Zayn understands it the most, because Niall and Harry and Liam, they feel too <em> much, </em> and Louis and Zayn, they feel too little. That’s just how it’s always been, and probably how it will always be.</p>
<p>Louis is the violent one. His knuckles are bruised, his lips are bleeding; he smiles in the face of danger and goes looking for it when it leaves.</p>
<p>Louis is not peace. Louis doesn’t know peace.</p>
<p>Louis doesn’t know a lot of things.</p>
<p>Zayn doesn’t try to talk to him. Zayn knows Louis doesn’t speak with words.</p>
<p>
  <em> The world is burning down and I’m cheering for the fire. </em>
</p>
<p>“Hmmm,” Zayn answers the taps on his knee with a smile. “Okay.”</p>
<p>Sometimes Louis hates how <em> not bothered </em> Zayn is. How they’re all so fucked up, Louis most of all, and how Zayn just smiles and kisses them, never questioning the fucked up things they say. Who the fuck just <em> smiles </em> at these sorts of things?</p>
<p><em> Zayn, </em> his brain offers unhelpfully. <em> Zayn smiles. </em></p>
<p>Louis shoves everything away. There’s still someone whispering in his ear, someone that sounds like Ed, but Louis screams back until the whispers stop, his eyes flickering around the room as they try to find Ed’s fiery red hair in the midst of their burning house.</p>
<p>Zayn’s fingers weave through his.</p>
<p>Louis blinks. Ed is gone.</p>
<p>Zayn is still here.</p>
<p>“I want to carve my name into your skin,” Louis blurts. Zayn smiles at him. Louis hates him. “And I want to burn you all into me.”</p>
<p>Zayn shrugs. “We haven’t got any tattoo shit here.”</p>
<p>Louis loves him.</p>
<p>They sit in silence for a few more minutes, and Louis can hear the others rustling upstairs. As Harry comes bounding down, dragging Niall behind him, Louis leans in and kisses Zayn hard, still surprised at the lack of smoke mixing in between their lungs. But Zayn still tastes like danger and lovelytheband’s <em> your whatever, </em> so Louis is content to keep on kissing him.</p>
<p>“Hi!” Harry squeals, wearing only mismatched white socks and a giant pink sweater that falls to his knees over his briefs, and Louis smiles at the sight. Harry’s hair is tangled into an impossible mess, but Louis still wants to bury his nose in it.</p>
<p>Niall is beaming under Harry’s arm and into his neck and his eyes are crinkled at the corners and all the ash in Louis’ veins bursts into butterflies.</p>
<p>Then Liam is wrapping around Louis from behind, and the entire world blossoms into wildflowers in Louis’ stomach.</p>
<p><em> This - </em> Louis’ mind malfunctions and sputters into black. <em> This must be happy. Right? </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>i will die</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>if i don’t try</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The days drag on like nails on a chalkboard. Louis can feel the seconds tick by beneath his skin, his fingertips buzzing with energy. He stares at them, at first in fear and then in apathy, remembering when they used to be still.</p>
<p>Ghosts live inside him. They dance and they sing and they shake him so hard he can’t breathe, but the drugs would sing them to sleep. If Louis were in the clouds, they couldn’t reach him. But the others took all his ladders away and they hacked off his wings and they buried him deep in the ground, and now he listens to the ghosts party all night long.</p>
<p>Louis hates parties.</p>
<p>“I know, Louis,” Taylor says, taking his hands. “But you don’t have to go to parties anymore, remember?”</p>
<p>Louis nods vacantly. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Harry still the rocking chair.</p>
<p>It’s funny - Harry misses Taylor more than any of them, and yet he never talks to her when she’s around. Louis sees Taylor almost every day, and they take walks together all the time, her hand in his, but Harry doesn’t talk to her.</p>
<p>It’s weird.</p>
<p>“Louis,” Taylor says. He looks at her, takes in her red lips and chipped nails and ragged hair. She seems so <em> her </em> in this light, almost like fame has never touched them.</p>
<p>Then again, Taylor was born for fame. Them, they were just thrust into it like bones into a grave; they were never meant for this.</p>
<p>“Louis,” Taylor says again, and Louis rolls his eyes.</p>
<p>“What,” he snaps, and Harry stiffens. Taylor glances at him, then turns back to Louis, offering him a small smile.</p>
<p>“Don’t you think maybe you should sleep?” She asks gently. “It’s been almost two days.”</p>
<p>Louis shrugs. He reaches up and touches her face, smiles at the way her cheek fits perfectly in his palm, just like it always has. <em> seven </em>plays from the record player for the fifth time that day, and something in Louis settles into dust, like leaves on the unbreakable winter ground.</p>
<p>“Can’t,” he mumbles. “Ghosts won’t let me, Tay. They never shut up.”</p>
<p>Harry bursts into tears. Louis turns to stare at him, watches him fall to the floor on his knees and hold his hands over his mouth, as if trying to force the escaping sobs back into their cells between his ribs. Louis tilts his head to the side.</p>
<p>Taylor’s hand leaves his. She walks away, not even glancing at Harry once, and Louis looks down at his empty and shaking hands, wondering why.</p>
<p>“Tay -” Harry blubbers, then wails, digging his palms into his eyeballs. “Taylor’s not <em> here</em>.”</p>
<p>Zayn crashes down the stairs, catches himself against the doorway and rushes to Harry’s side, enveloping him in his arms. He holds Harry close, shushes him as he runs his fingers through his hair, and Harry fists his hand in Zayn’s sweater, burying his face in his chest.</p>
<p>Liam and Niall aren’t far behind. Liam heads for Harry, kneeling in front of him and Zayn and speaking to them quietly, too quietly for Louis to hear. But whatever they’re saying, Louis doesn’t care.</p>
<p>Niall sits down beside him. His eyes are sad, but his hands are still, and Louis wants to hold them. Instead he fists his fingers in his hair and tries to go blind staring into the empty fireplace as Harry cries.</p>
<p>Louis counts each second by the buzz in his fingertips. Almost three hundred have gone by when Niall suddenly reaches up, untangles Louis’ fingers from his hair, and weaves them through his own.</p>
<p><em> What do you mean? </em> Louis’ mind begs, though his mouth is too afraid to ask. He looks up and catches Taylor’s eyes across the room, her hand holding the record player quiet. <em> What do you mean, she’s right there. </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>damned</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>if i ask why</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harry won’t look at him.</p>
<p>Louis Tomlinson doesn’t know how to live in a world where Harry Styles won’t look at him.</p>
<p>It’s dark out now. The record players, ghosts themselves, seem to sense the heaviness in the air, and play outsideOUTSIDE’s <em> Comatose </em> on repeat as Louis stares up at the starless sky. Lately the footsteps have stopped behind him, so he assumes the others have gone to bed.</p>
<p>They don’t want him. Louis doesn’t know how to make them see that, how to force them to know just how deep his pain runs, just how fucked up he really is. He’s not the boy they fell in love with ten years ago; he’s not even close. He’s not what they want.</p>
<p>He’s a ghost, now. Nothing more.</p>
<p>Someone wanders into the room. Louis keeps his eyes fixed on the black sky, refusing to move his stiff neck. If he is a skeleton, he should at least play the part.</p>
<p>“Are you hungry?”</p>
<p>Louis blinks. Behind him, he hears Niall take in a deep breath and step closer.</p>
<p>“Come on. Come eat with me.”</p>
<p>Louis doesn’t want to eat. His stomach is empty, just like the rest of him, and Louis likes to keep himself consistent.</p>
<p>But Niall doesn’t eat. And he’ll never eat unless Louis walks him to the kitchen and eats with him. So if he wants to, Louis isn’t gonna deny him.</p>
<p>He stands on wobbly legs, taking Niall’s outstretched hand in his own shaking fingers. Niall brings a hand to his cheek, kissing him softly, and Louis hopes that somewhere, somehow, the gaping hole in his chest is beating.</p>
<p>“What do you want?” Niall says, opening the fridge and turning golden in its light. Louis shrugs, eyes caught on his face and the way his eyes shine in the glow.</p>
<p>“Nothing, huh,” Niall mutters after a minute, throwing some angel hair and IKEA meatballs in the microwave before turning back to Louis, who shrugs again, looking down at his lap.</p>
<p>“Not hungry,” he mumbles, staring at his shaking hands. The counter is cold through his sweatpants, and Niall’s eyes are all sad and Louis doesn’t want to look in them.</p>
<p>“What’s wrong?” Niall asks. Louis shrugs a third time. Niall sighs.</p>
<p>He turns to the beeping microwave. His hand barely closes around the door handle before Louis is blurting, “I don’t belong here.”</p>
<p>It seems so stupid once he says it out loud, but he can’t take it back and he can’t let it go. So it sits there, in the air between him and one of the four people he loves most in the world, and he watches as Niall’s fragile heart breaks in his selfish hands.</p>
<p>“What the fuck does that mean?” Niall rasps. His hands twitch until they curl into fists by his sides and Louis tries to blink away Ed, who watches them silently from the back door, his hands in his pockets.</p>
<p>“It means I don’t belong here,” Louis grits out, nails digging into his palms. “I thought that was pretty fucking obvious, Ni.”</p>
<p>Niall’s face is red. Louis would compare him to a rose if roses looked like they were about to strangle him.</p>
<p>“Don’t say that,” Niall seethes. “Don’t ever fucking say that, you absolute fucking moron.”</p>
<p>Louis feels whatever’s in his chest tighten. Niall hasn’t sworn this much since Zayn left.</p>
<p>“Why not?” Louis spits, because he’s a masochist, and waits for Niall to lunge at him like Liam would. He forgets one important thing -</p>
<p>Niall isn’t Liam.</p>
<p>Niall, instead, is bursting into tears.</p>
<p><em>“Shit,”</em> Louis mutters, hopping off the counter and enveloping Niall in his arms. “Fuck, shit, god <em> fucking </em> damnit…”</p>
<p>Niall bangs on Louis’ chest with weak fists, but Louis holds on tight. Eventually Niall gives up and weaves his arms around Louis’ neck, tangling his fingers in his hair, and Louis closes his eyes to try and forget the sight of Niall’s eyes shattering into kaleidoscopes.</p>
<p>“Don’t fucking say that,” Niall sobs into his chest. “Don’t fucking say that, I love you, we love you, I’m the one who doesn’t fucking fit, you’re such a fucking idiot…”</p>
<p>“What?” Louis breathes, and everything tastes sour. Niall goes quiet, trying to hush his sobs by pressing his mouth over Louis’ heart. “What? What the fuck, Niall?”</p>
<p>Niall pulls back, smiling oddly. His lips are twisted, his eyes are dead, and he looks so unlike the boy Louis loves that he finds himself clasping Niall’s face in his hands, searching his vacant eyes desperately for some sort of recognition.</p>
<p>From the corner, Ed smiles.</p>
<p>“Niall,” Louis whispers. “Niall, oh my god.”</p>
<p>Niall shrugs. He pulls away from Louis, heading for the microwave and the meal inside that’s no doubt gone cold again, but Louis pulls him back, trapping Niall against his chest with an arm around his waist.</p>
<p>“Of course you fit with us,” he murmurs. “You’ve always fucking fit with us, baby.”</p>
<p>Niall’s face scrunches up, the tears falling faster as he squirms to try and break out of Louis’ arms, but Louis kisses him quiet, not caring how salty it all tastes.</p>
<p>“You don’t get it,” Niall blubbers, wiping at his eyes when Louis pulls away. “You don’t get it. I’m the odd one out. I’m the best friend. There is Zayn and Liam, and there is Harry and you, and there is me. I’m not special, I don’t fit. I don’t matter.”</p>
<p>Louis has named a lot of true things bullshit in his life, but this is the first one he actually means.</p>
<p><em>“Bullshit,”</em> he hisses, and Niall whimpers as Louis’ fingers tighten around his waist. “Bullshit, Niall, you fit. It’s all of us or it’s nothing, you know that.”</p>
<p>Niall stills in his arms. He stares at the wall just past Louis’ shoulder, and Louis turns back to see Ed waiting there, his eyes sad but still twinkling.</p>
<p>“Niall,” he whispers, and Niall snaps out of it, looking scared. His hands come up to rest on Louis’ shoulders, and he shakes his head.</p>
<p>His smile is half-hearted and broken, and Louis hates that it’s familiar.</p>
<p>“It’s okay, Louis,” Niall murmurs. “I’ve known for a long time that you guys don’t belong to me the way you belong to each other. You all are soulmates, and I’m just here, and that’s okay.”</p>
<p>It’s not true. It’s bullshit. It’s false and it’s a lie and it’s the most horrible thing Louis has ever heard and it doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>He knows that no matter what he says, Niall won’t change his mind.</p>
<p>This is Niall’s ghost.</p>
<p>He presses his forehead to the side of Niall’s head, inhaling sharply when he sees Niall’s lip quiver. He doesn’t know how to pour everything into words, because Louis doesn’t do words, but still he tries to speak, at least a little bit.</p>
<p>“Then we’ll mold ourselves to fit with you,” he murmurs. “If you really don’t fit like you say you don’t, then we’ll work on it. And we’ll sharpen our curves and soften our edges until your pieces fit with ours.”</p>
<p>Niall turns his head, slowly. His eyes are broken blue glass, and they are beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.</p>
<p>“What?” He whispers. Louis kisses him.</p>
<p>“You belong here, Niall,” he tries one last time, feeling his own tears slip from his eyes, finally. “You belong here, and I belong here too.”</p>
<p>He doesn’t believe it, not fully. He can’t. But Niall’s hands are in his hair, and his lips are on Louis’ lips, and he thinks that maybe in this entire fucked up world of bad choices and heartless mistakes, this is the one thing they get right.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>this is something real</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>this is something right</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Something about the way Niall kissed him tonight has got Louis thinking - maybe the five of them are soulmates.</p>
<p>He knows what he said. He knows he’s never considered it. He knows god isn’t real and all the marks on his skin are self-inflicted. All that, he knows.</p>
<p>But there is something unexplainable about the five of them. That cannot be denied, no matter who you are; destiny is a fraud, but still Louis is charmed by her notions, looking up at his shaking hands in the dark and wondering why they seem to fit so well in his boys’.</p>
<p>That cannot be normal. <em> They </em> cannot be normal.</p>
<p>“You don’t believe in soulmates,” Taylor says. She reaches up and takes his hand, leaving only the ceiling for him to stare up at, and Louis shrugs. He can feel his heart beating beneath his ribs, and he can hear the boards of his bed creaking beneath his weight, and he wonders if crashing through four false floors would kill him.</p>
<p>“Maybe I do,” he answers, looking around the room at all the other shadows watching him. Eleanor and Ed, Danielle and Sophia, Gigi and Perrie. The people they know so well, and do not talk to. “Maybe I do, now.”</p>
<p>Taylor smiles. She shakes her head, and looks at him like he’s crazy. Louis aches for her laugh, and the way it used to light up rooms. It’s been so long since he’s last seen her in Harry’s arms, the two of them swaying in the dim light of a closing bar.</p>
<p>“You don’t believe in soulmates,” Taylor says again. Louis is tired. “You wish you could. You want to believe in everlasting love, in invincible strings, but you don’t. You can’t.”</p>
<p>She sounds so much like himself. All the parts of himself he hates, the cynicism and the hate and the anger. The faithlessness that plagues his blackened dreams.</p>
<p>“I could,” he says, turning his head to meet her eyes. “I could believe in them. If I tried.”</p>
<p>Taylor smiles sadly. She reaches out and brushes a stray lock of hair back from his face, her own ghostly beautiful in the moonlight.</p>
<p>“You have tried,” she whispers. “You have tried, Louis. And it hasn’t worked.”</p>
<p>Louis shrugs. He turns away, stares up at the ceiling and stops trying to hold on to her hand. All the other ghosts, their faces are sad. They are haunted and pale and empty, and Louis hates to look into their eyes, because there is so much shit there, so much, <em> too </em> much of himself.</p>
<p>“I believe in love,” Louis says. He’s not talking to Taylor, not really, but she answers him with a hum, letting her hand rest over his heart.</p>
<p>“You believe that this beats for those four boys,” she mumbles. “What happens when it stops beating?”</p>
<p>And Louis doesn’t know. Taylor stands and takes Ed’s hand, the other ghosts trailing behind her as she leaves the room. The door is open, and Eleanor smiles at him until she disappears. The ink in his skin aches like poison, and his hands shake, and Louis doesn’t know.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>never been in love</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>never felt at all</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>until now</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You came to bed late last night.”</p>
<p>Louis looks up at Zayn, who stares out into the open field of blooming wildflowers at the others. Liam lies with his eyes closed, letting the rain mix with his tears, and Niall strums his guitar and laughs along to the poetry Harry screams into the wind. Something about it is so impossibly<em> them, </em> and the thought shakes Louis to his core.</p>
<p>He shrugs. How do you tell the boy you love that you are kept up by ghosts, grasping at the memories written in the palms of their hands?</p>
<p>
  <em> You don’t. </em>
</p>
<p>“Couldn’t sleep.” He has the urge to light a cigarette, but there are none around. The thought of smoke alone burns his lungs.</p>
<p>Zayn hums. The tattoos on his skin look like something Louis should trace with his lips, kiss every spot of ink until Zayn is entirely marked with his love, but those days are a thing of the past. Their kisses now are melancholy, remembrance, nothing more and nothing less.</p>
<p><em> They could be, </em> his mind whispers, and it sounds like Perrie. <em> They could be, and you know it. All you have to do is love him. </em></p>
<p>Louis doesn’t have the capacity for love. Only humans can love.</p>
<p>Then Zayn looks at him and Louis suddenly realizes why there’s still a heart in his chest.</p>
<p>“I love you.”</p>
<p>He doesn’t mean it the same way they do. He doesn’t mean <em> you are my home, </em> doesn’t mean <em> you are the reason I’m alive, </em> doesn’t mean <em> you are my beginning, my middle, and my end. </em></p>
<p>He means <em> I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU AGAIN. </em></p>
<p>He means <em> I WILL HOLD ON TO YOU FOREVER. </em></p>
<p>He means <em> I WILL BREATHE LIFE INTO YOUR VEINS UNTIL THERE IS NOTHING LEFT IN MY LUNGS, </em> and <em> THAT IS NOT A PROMISE. </em></p>
<p>Zayn smiles at him anyway. Leans in and kisses him, only their mouths touching, no wandering hands, and Louis hopes that this is how he eventually goes.</p>
<p>“I love you too,” Zayn answers, his eyes shining like those stars Louis loves so much, and something in Louis breaks, because they hold so much hope for him.</p>
<p>But Louis is not hope. Louis is slammed doors, and empty glasses, and dead flowers.</p>
<p>Louis is not worth it.</p>
<p>Zayn takes his hand. Weaves their fingers together, looks up at Louis through his eyelashes. His tongue presses against the backs of his teeth, and Louis hates that he’s beautiful, hates that he’s okay, hates that he belongs to <em> Louis. </em></p>
<p>“I don’t deserve you,” he murmurs, and no one is supposed to hear. Perrie raises her eyebrows, stares him down as Gigi smirks and knocks back a glass of wine.</p>
<p>Zayn laughs. It’s soft, and it’s kind, and Louis drinks it up on his tongue, kissing Zayn until his chest is heaving and his heart is bursting.</p>
<p>“Of course you deserve me,” Zayn whispers, looping an arm around Louis’ neck and pulling him closer. Louis’ hands settle on Zayn’s hips, and Harry and Liam and Niall’s laughter echoes around the sky.</p>
<p>“This is the part where you kiss him,” Gigi says, raising her glass, and Louis squeezes his eyes shut, dragging Zayn closer until his back touches the wood, unable to hold himself up any longer.</p>
<p>This is not love. This is not anything.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>as i lay here in your bed</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>i need you on my chest</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The thing about memory is that it’s fleeting. It comes and goes as it pleases, quick and painful, and the ghosts in Louis’ head pay it no mind, making no move to try and grasp it in their fingers.</p>
<p>But what Louis does not remember, he has no recollection of ever knowing. The friends lost from his mind are lost forever, as Louis cannot remind himself of them. And so there is no way to know if he even misses anyone at all.</p>
<p><em> Remember Me </em> from <em> COCO </em> plays softly on the record player, and dinner is quiet. Zayn has been drawing more and more lately, as if desperate to immortalize their faces in paint and charcoal, and his poetry is scattered about the room.</p>
<p>Louis leans down and picks up the scrap of paper that’s danced its way across the floor to his chair, his heart dropping at the words.</p>
<p>
  <em> Tell the living that I was never one of you. </em>
</p>
<p>His breath catches in his throat. He turns to Zayn, alarmed, who just takes his hand and smiles.</p>
<p>“Dawn Kurtagich,” he whispers. <em>“The Dead House. </em> I’m fine.”</p>
<p>Louis nods vacantly. He opens his mouth with a question on his lips, not sure what, when something crashes and shatters and shakes the house and Louis’ soul to his core.</p>
<p>He turns towards the kitchen and its single burning light. There, encased in gold like an angel, stands Liam, staring down at his hands and the blood dripping from them.</p>
<p>“Shit,” Zayn hisses, bursting out of his chair and rushing over to take Liam’s hands in his. Harry springs up next, pulling Niall by the hand over to the kitchen, where they bustle about finding a cloth to dampen and wrap around Liam’s trembling hand.</p>
<p>Louis looks down at his own. They shake, but only slightly, and he wants to smile to himself but cannot find the will.</p>
<p>“Family.”</p>
<p>He looks up again. Liam is the one who has spoken, his face ashen, and Louis can’t breathe.</p>
<p>“What?” He gasps, and Liam lifts his sunken eyes to look into Louis’. Everything in Louis’ body grows cold and numb in seconds, as if he is staring at a stranger.</p>
<p>His bones are crawling from their graves in his skin and melting into ash. He feels as if he’s burning, that word tugging at his heart and snipping his arteries like ribbons.</p>
<p>“Family,” Liam whispers, again. “Do I have a family?”</p>
<p>Harry shakes his head, his brow furrowing. He brushes a hand through Liam’s hair, touching his face with skeletal fingers.</p>
<p>“Of course,” he says. “We’re right here.”</p>
<p>Liam’s eyes rise to him, slowly. He shakes his head, pulling away, and stumbles backwards on hesitant feet over broken glass.</p>
<p>“No,” he breathes. “No, real families. Mothers and fathers and siblings. Flesh and blood. Those kinds of families.”</p>
<p>Harry’s eyes slip from Liam’s face and fall to the floor. Louis stares as Zayn buries his face in his hands, and Niall steadies himself against the fridge, blue bleeding out of his eyes and leaving grey.</p>
<p>“I don’t remember where we came from,” Niall whispers. “I don’t… we must not have families.”</p>
<p>Zayn shakes his head. Into his hands, he mumbles, “Everybody has a family. All the books say so.”</p>
<p>There is something missing from Louis’ heart. A red string, a severed vein - it is vital, it is irreplaceable, and it is gone.</p>
<p>No one forgets their family. Who could forget their family?</p>
<p><em> This is wrong, </em> Louis’ mind chants as Harry breaks into tears, letting Liam pull him close without a fight. Niall rushes forward and throws his arms around them, and Zayn is not slow to follow. Louis’ mind screams.</p>
<p>
  <em> Something is wrong. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Something is very wrong. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Something is incredibly, irreversibly wrong. </em>
</p>
<p>The chair screeches against the wooden floor as Louis stands, making frantic strides towards his family, embalmed in gold.</p>
<p>Something crunches under his foot. He stops, ghostly hands pulling him back, and turns his eyes slowly to the floor, leaning down and picking up the piece of paper holding Zayn’s scrawl.</p>
<p>
  <em> Hell is empty, and all the devils are here. </em>
</p>
<p>William Shakespeare.<em> The Tempest. </em></p>
<p>The world is not the only thing that is ending. Louis manages to stumble just a bit further forward, the paper fluttering to the ground from his weak hands, before dropping to his knees at the feet of his loves, the four boys he holds as angels in a world he truly knows nothing about.</p>
<p>They reach down. They pull him up. They take his sins and wash him clean with their tears, and Louis shoves his black soul down into the deepest abysses of impure imagination.</p>
<p>He does miss his family. There is no other family to miss.</p>
<p>“Stay,” he pleads, voice breaking, and Harry smiles, but it is sad.</p>
<p>“Always,” he answers. Louis doesn’t believe him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>to warm me all the time</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>to tickle with your breath</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>sweeting on your lips</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The heart in Louis’ chest burns slow. He can feel its ashes peel and flutter, falling with painful bangs down the bottomless tunnels leading to the deepest recesses of his soul. His abdomen feels cold and empty, and he suddenly remembers that he didn’t eat dinner.</p>
<p>He presses a hand to his stomach. There is only skin and muscle and flesh, no bone to speak of, but Louis has the strangest urge to press down until there’s a bleeding hand-shaped hole in his body.</p>
<p>Maybe <em> that </em> would leave a mark.</p>
<p>Their scars do not fade. Harry’s wrists remain marred with pain, and Zayn’s body withers like a dying flower beneath his favorite sweaters. The bags under Liam’s eyes grow darker by the day, and Niall’s collarbones stick out like leaves on a winter branch, sharp and tight against his skin. The longer Louis stares at them all, the deeper something dark curls in his mind, begging the horror to come clawing its way out from beneath their skin, killing them and killing them and killing them until they aren’t themselves anymore.</p>
<p>Louis’ mind is fucked up.</p>
<p>Now, he stares into the fire. The flames dance like red lovers, passionate beneath the sheets in sketchy hotel rooms beneath a starry sky, and Louis wants to rip his eyes from their sockets and then sew them back in.</p>
<p>The flames die slowly, as all things do. Louis waits until they are embers, feels their imprints on his soul, and closes his eyes, placing his hands on his neck and squeezing.</p>
<p>“Stop it, Louis,” Taylor says softly. “The dark is never the answer.”</p>
<p>Louis hates her, and burns with it. All over again, the ashes of his heart patch themselves back together, and Louis lets his rage simmer until it bursts, blazing his fragile heart back into scorched, loveless ruin.</p>
<p>He opens his eyes. He imagines the fire blisters in them too, as striking as lightning in a hurricane. The living room is dimly lit and quiet, and the screams fill Louis’ ears.</p>
<p>Taylor stands in the corner, her hand on Harry’s shoulder as he rocks back and forth, his fingers weaved through Niall’s. She meets Louis’ eyes and smiles, then glances to the side where Ed rests, criss-cross at Niall’s feet.</p>
<p>Louis forces his eyes to move about the room, finding Liam next. Sophia and Danielle sit on either side of him, their arms looped through his, and their eyes are empty of any feeling, like barren landscapes. And Zayn, finally, is held in careful arms of Perrie and Gigi, who offer Louis only a cryptic and sad smile each.</p>
<p>Louis’ heart is burning. The smoke curls violently upwards, and he feels it spiralling towards home in his mind, like it’s burning photographic memory. Beside him, Eleanor remains still like a glass statue, and he takes her hand, just to be sure he can.</p>
<p>He turns his head and stares at her face - her soft cheekbones, her shining eyes, her chapped lips. He commits each fact to memory and to heart, hoping that at least one will survive their wrathful fire.</p>
<p>She is so familiar she is a part of him. She inhabits different stars, travels across galaxies, but she is his landmark, and without her, he feels as if the breath has been stolen from his lungs.</p>
<p><em> You have loved me for things no one else could, </em> he thinks. <em> You have been the mirror of my soul. You have been my constant. You have been love itself, and I do not know what I will do if I forget you. </em></p>
<p>It is a dangerous sentiment, and an admittance he does not make. He knows all too well the cost of truth.</p>
<p>Instead, he says, “I don’t wanna forget you,” and brushes his knuckles across her cheek.</p>
<p>This, alone, he will pay for. Across the room, he meets Harry’s gaze, and feels the fire in his chest burn faster at the sight of sadness in those usually so bright eyes, in those eyes that have been home for years.</p>
<p><em> What? </em>He wants to ask, but keeps his lips stitched shut like a doll’s wounds.</p>
<p>“We don’t wanna forget you either,” Zayn whispers, and Louis’ eyes snap to him. He blinks once, then twice, and suddenly the five of them are alone.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” he whispers, because he can never explain, and stares into the dark fireplace without a smile, flames crackling in his soul now.</p>
<p>There are no words. Louis has lost them all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>there ain’t nothin’</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>common ‘bout us</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They traipse upstairs together this time. Louis doesn’t want to go back to their haunted bedroom, but he supposes the ghosts will hover no matter where he is. So he takes Liam’s outstretched hand and holds it tight as they make their way to what used to be Harry’s bedroom, where their big white bed awaits, sheets mussed and cold.</p>
<p>Harry crawls in first, curling up in the middle of the bed. He sighs as he settles down, hair curled around his head like a halo, and Niall follows, pressing against Harry and wrapping his arms around him, fisting his fingers in Harry’s soft pink sweater. Harry lets out a happy little sigh into Niall’s chest, and Niall smiles into Harry’s hair, closing his eyes.</p>
<p>Louis feels like a statue, watching them. Desperate to move, but frozen still in a petrified position, unable to even twitch. It’s Liam who nudges him forward, pressing a gentle hand against his back.</p>
<p>“Go on,” he says softly. Louis feels the sudden burning urge to kiss him, and does, then climbs in behind Harry and wraps himself around his back, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. Harry hums in response, whispering a sleepy <em> love you, Lou </em> before passing out in Louis and Niall’s arms, snoring quietly. Niall is mumbling along to dreams not long after, but Louis reaches over and takes his hand anyway, hoping that maybe Niall can feel it, even in his sleep.</p>
<p>Liam slides in beside him. Louis tries not to cry at the feeling of calloused fingers in his hair, brushing back and forth across his scalp. This has been lost on him for so long.</p>
<p>Zayn molds himself against Niall, slipping into an easy sleep. He’s been falling to the black faster and faster these days, no longer wandering the halls every night like some lost spirit, and Louis is glad for it, hating how Zayn’s beautiful face would be marred by dark bags and gaunt cheeks come morning.</p>
<p>Liam’s fingers come to a stop in Louis’ hair. Sniffles follow shortly after, and suddenly Louis is alone.</p>
<p>It’s too quiet. Louis hates the quiet.</p>
<p>As if on cue, the record player in the corner of Harry’s room starts up. Taylor’s voice fills the room, <em> New Year’s Day </em> playing soft and muted. And there, in the corner, stand Ed and Taylor herself, their hands clasped tight.</p>
<p>Louis doesn’t know why the ghosts follow him everywhere. Doesn’t know why the world has left him lonely and cold, wandering towards his grave on bare feet in the snow. His boys, their bodies warm him slightly, but they, too, are ghosts.</p>
<p>Maybe Louis is a ghost too. He closes his eyes, the music washing over him like a heavy blanket, and he thinks of how strangled his heart feels in his chest, always unable to breathe.</p>
<p>
  <em> Please don’t ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere… </em>
</p>
<p>Fuck. Fuck, why?</p>
<p>“Please stop,” he whispers, but the record player carries right on. He squeezes his eyes shut tighter, but when he opens them Taylor and Ed remain, their kind eyes watching him in pity. “Please, stop following me.”</p>
<p>Ed offers a sorry smile, but shakes his head. Taylor just stares, red lips set in the stone of something expressionless. Louis feels the tears climb up his throat and again shuts his eyes, not wanting to cry and wake up the sleeping angels beside him.</p>
<p>
  <em> Please don’t ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere… </em>
</p>
<p>“I hate you,” Louis rasps, refusing to open his eyes. “I hate you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>in this ordinary world</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>where nothing is enough</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Louis’ mind works like a forest without paths. He is always lost, but there is always somewhere else to go, or at least somewhere else to hide. Everything is cold and dark and he can’t see farther than a few feet in front of him, and all too often the streams have flooded or the trees are collapsing into fire.</p>
<p>Louis’ mind is in ruins, is what he’s trying to say. It’s not a healthy place to be; it’s his prison. But he’s been locked in there for centuries now, and he’s lost hope of ever escaping.</p>
<p>This is his grave. This is where he ends.</p>
<p>He cannot sleep. These thoughts plague his mind like a sickness, darkening his veins to black. The poison spreads through his tattoos until even his love is venomous, and so he does his best to pull his infected body from Liam’s arms, creeping out of the bedroom and down into the foyer in only his sleeveless shirt and some boxers, shivering.</p>
<p>“Fuck,” he mutters to himself as he stubs his toe against the banister. Then someone touches his shoulder, and Louis screams into his hands, bursting back into the wall.</p>
<p>The house shakes beneath his violent weight. But he stays still like a statue for a whole minute, and no one comes bounding down the stairs.</p>
<p>He doesn’t know whether that hurts or not.</p>
<p>When he finally opens his eyes, Eleanor is staring at him from beside the banister, unsmiling and ghostly in the moonlight.</p>
<p>“Are you okay?” She asks, and he loves her so much.</p>
<p>“Yes,” he answers, dragging her into his arms. “Of course.”</p>
<p>It’s a lie. It’s always a fucking lie but it doesn’t matter, not when she’s here and in his arms and his four boys are safe and sound upstairs without him.</p>
<p>Eleanor says nothing. She pulls back with a kiss to his cheek and takes his hand, leading him into the dimly lit kitchen. She guides him into the chair at the head of the table, then sits down beside him on the right.</p>
<p>“Are you okay?” She asks again.</p>
<p>Louis takes it back. He hates her.</p>
<p>“Yes.” He nods. “Of course.”</p>
<p>Eleanor hums. She reaches out and threads their fingers together, squeezing his hand. They stay like that in silence, for a moment, and then she tilts his head up to meet her eyes, amber pupils shining with some unrecognizable emotion.</p>
<p>“Louis,” she whispers. “Are you okay?”</p>
<p>Louis shakes his head with a manic laugh. He pulls his hand from hers, curling in on himself in the chair. What a stupid question.</p>
<p><em>“Yes,”</em> he answers, for the third time. “Of cour -”</p>
<p>“Shut the fuck up, Lou,” Eleanor snaps. Her eyes are burning now, and Louis feels her flames tangle their tendrils around his heart and squeeze.</p>
<p>“El -” He tries, but she won’t let him speak, pressing her hand over his mouth.</p>
<p>“No. Lou, god, Louis, stop pretending you’re a tough little shit who can take anything anyone throws at him,” she seethes. “You’re not some invincible warrior, you never have been. You’re a scared little kid.”</p>
<p>Louis scoffs. He grasps her wrist in his rough fingers and yanks, his smile twisted and leering as he stares her down.</p>
<p>“Well, how would you fucking know, El?” He hisses. “You were never around for the bad shit.”</p>
<p>Eleanor rolls her eyes, and Louis is once again reminded why he chose her. She isn’t some weak invalid. She doesn’t take any of the shit anyone throws at her. She’s not afraid to tell it like it is, even if it breaks you. She’s not afraid to <em> break </em> you.</p>
<p>She’s just like him.</p>
<p>“You are a scared little kid, Louis,” she says. “And that’s okay. You’re fucked in the head because of a world that didn’t love you right, and that’s okay. You need those boys to take care of you, and that’s okay.”</p>
<p>Louis hates this. He is not weak. He is not some fucking -</p>
<p>“No, you’re not weak, Louis,” Eleanor murmurs. “You were never weak. But you’re scared. And you’re sick, and you’re sad. And that doesn’t make you weak or stupid or unlovable, it just means that you can’t always take care of yourself. But that is<em> okay, </em> Louis. You don’t need to do this alone.”</p>
<p><em> Yes, I do, </em> Louis thinks. <em> You don’t understand. You don’t understand what they did to me. </em></p>
<p>“I know,” Eleanor whispers. Her eyes glisten as she reaches out and touches his face, smiling something like regret and whiskey. “I know I don’t understand, Lou. But they do. And they’re right here. They’re not going anywhere.”</p>
<p>Louis sighs. The war has left him weary; he sways back and forth on his feet in his mind, lost in the woods still.</p>
<p>“You deserve this,” Eleanor says softly. “You deserve rest. You deserve peace. You <em> deserve </em> to be taken care of, Louis. You always have.”</p>
<p>Louis’ cheeks are wet, and his eyes are tired. He closes them for a moment, only for a moment, and focuses on the feeling of her hand in his, and the safety it promises.</p>
<p><em>“I’m</em> supposed to take care of <em> them,”</em> he mumbles. “Not the other way around.”</p>
<p>Eleanor shrugs. She brushes her fingers through his hair and kisses his forehead.</p>
<p>“Who says it can’t be both, Louis?” She whispers. “Who says you can’t take care of each other?”</p>
<p>Louis doesn’t know.</p>
<p>The shadows consume him. The stars are gone.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>everything is grey</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>mistake your love for lust</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The hand around his is warm. Eleanor’s are always cold, the ghosts’ are always cold, but the hand around his is warm.</p>
<p>He doesn’t want to open his eyes. He can feel the sunlight on his face, streaming in through the windows, and Camila Cabello’s <em> Used to This </em>is rumbling through the house. Louis can hear laughter, can smell syrup, can feel the hand in his.</p>
<p>And then someone leans over and kisses him, and Louis can taste pancake batter and burnt waffles on his tongue.</p>
<p>“Hmm,” he mumbles, and laughs. Zayn kisses him again, and Louis peels his hand from the table to wrap it around Zayn’s, smiling as he lifts his head from his arms and opens his eyes.</p>
<p>Zayn is smiling, shining with joy. It’s such a rare sight that Louis feels the need to kiss him again and does, because he’s allowed to, because he wants to, because he’s been given a lot of shit in his life but this one sweet gift is almost enough to make up for it.</p>
<p>“Good morning,” Zayn murmurs, their foreheads pressed together. Louis doesn’t know how they ever could have thought they hated each other.</p>
<p>“Mornin’,” he whispers back. It feels like a secret, like something that’s only theirs, and Louis feels the strange urge to be caught in this moment forever. He’s never wanted to grow up, too afraid of it for words, but now he thinks that maybe growing old wouldn’t be so bad, if they were the ones aging beside him.</p>
<p>Zayn hums. Louis drags his hands up Zayn’s sides, pulls him closer, touches his neck and feels his pulse. There is something so peaceful about this moment, something so new that Louis has never known.</p>
<p>“I think I love you,” he says, and it’s soft and truthful. Zayn smiles, and Louis’ everything burns like a bonfire celebrating rebirth.</p>
<p>“I know I love you too,” Zayn answers, and kisses him. Louis drinks in his taste, his smell, his touch, better than any drug Louis has ever tried. From the living room the laughter sounds again, and Louis would bet anything it’s Harry’s.</p>
<p>Sure enough, when he opens his eyes again, Harry is spinning around the room on his tiptoes, his pink sweater fisted in Liam’s hands as he drags Harry into a kiss, and Niall crashes into them with some sort of blind affection and they both kiss him too. They’re stumbling around on unbalanced feet, trying to dance on new legs, and Louis smiles because they’re smiling.</p>
<p>Love is a stranger to Louis still, though he’s known her for years. But he thinks that maybe she looks like those smiles, if he’s remembering her right, and he can’t quite recall how her fingers felt against his skin, but he’s betting it feels something like theirs.</p>
<p>“I love you,” he says again, because he can and because they wouldn’t understand what he means if he tried to say it in his own language, and Zayn beams. Louis is suddenly reminded that the sun is a star too.</p>
<p>“We know,” Zayn says, tucking his face into Louis’ neck. He’s somehow managed to drag himself into Louis’ lap, has curled their bodies together in some kind of knot that Louis doesn’t know how to undo, but he has no plans to try. “You don’t have to say it.”</p>
<p>Louis grins. He’s missed doing that, he thinks.</p>
<p>“I want to,” he says, and realizes it’s the truth. “I want to. You deserve to hear it.”</p>
<p>Those words don’t feel so wrong on his own tongue. Zayn pulls back just enough to meet his eyes, his hands on his face, and Louis smiles, hoping Zayn can see a twinkle in his eyes like he used to.</p>
<p>“Lou,” Zayn whispers, and Louis shakes his head, his hands pressing themselves against Zayn’s back.</p>
<p>“I love you,” he murmurs. “You deserve to know.”</p>
<p>Zayn kisses him. Louis feels stars burst into existence beneath his skin.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>when i hold you</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>in my arms</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The thing about love is that it isn’t a math equation.</p>
<p>Nothing is equal. Everything is somewhat tipped in a certain direction, and they will never love all of each other the same amount. They can try as hard as they want to tip the scales in one another’s favor, but the truth is there will always be an imbalance.</p>
<p>When hearts break, it is a messy, messy thing. None of them expected to get equal pieces of each other’s.</p>
<p>The Girl and the Dreamcatcher’s <em> Written in the Stars </em> is blasting from the record player way too loud. Niall’s hand is tangled in Louis’ right, and Harry’s in his left. Zayn is curled into Liam’s side with his arm looped through Harry’s, and through the smoke of the fires burning down the world Louis thinks that maybe he can still see the stars.</p>
<p>At the very least, he can see theirs.</p>
<p>Louis’ heart is burning. But for once he welcomes the flames, relishes in the way they bleed into his tattoos and turn them into ashy rivers. He has inked himself with the proof of his love for these four boys, but mostly for Harry, because soulmates aren’t real but Louis has always known Harry is his.</p>
<p>And that’s the truth. Louis Tomlinson will always love Harry Styles more than anyone else, no matter how hard he tries. And he will always choose Zayn Malik over those left over, because that’s just how he was made. His love for Harry and Zayn was carved into his bones before he was even born, just waiting to be awakened.</p>
<p>Niall and Liam, Louis loves them too. He always will, without conditions or exceptions, because they are as much a part of him as the tattoos Louis wears with pride. They may not have been built into his heart, but he has torn out some of his arteries to make room.</p>
<p>The sun has set on their lives. They are no longer illuminated by spotlights; they are not the fixtures of every young girl’s life anymore, and Louis is all the happier for it. He was never made for fame. They were never made for millions of eyes.</p>
<p>They were born for each other, in part. But the rest, they chose. They fought for every note, every smile, every cheer. They remain warriors, long after the war has ended, and Louis wonders sometimes if they were ever meant for rest, or if their graves have always laid on the battlefield.</p>
<p>“I hope we stay here forever,” Niall says, then laughs, and Louis kisses the side of his head hard, desperate to feel the bone beneath that beautifully unkempt hair.</p>
<p>From across the floor, Zayn smiles. He nudges his nose against Harry’s neck, kisses his shoulder, and Harry turns his head and nuzzles Zayn’s hair, the two of them grinning stupidly at each other as Liam lays his tired twinkling eyes on Louis, smiling some soft smile that suggests a million secrets he’s keeping just for him.</p>
<p><em> I love you, </em> Louis thinks, <em> I really, really love you, </em> but instead of admitting it he just huffs out a laugh, craning his neck to kiss Niall on the mouth this time.</p>
<p>“I don’t think we’ve got a choice, Ni,” he whispers. The ceiling is old and ugly above them, the rough carpet and wood floor rough beneath their backs, and the record player is still too loud. There is so much hopelessness here, so much to give up for, but then Harry is laughing, and suddenly Louis doesn’t care.</p>
<p>“But me too,” he finishes in a rasp, willing the tears back from his eyes, and they all smile at him.</p>
<p>They have no equal footing. They never will. But if they can be strong enough, try hard enough, <em> love </em> each other enough, then Louis is sure they’ll all make it to the top of the hill eventually.</p>
<p>No person left behind. Five or nothing. All or nothing.</p>
<p><em> Us, </em> Louis thinks. <em> Us, or nothing. </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>there ain’t nothin’</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>common ‘bout us</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The world’s end is a blessing to Louis.</p>
<p>He hates to say that, because he knows how it sounds, but the world has never really been very kind to him. It’s beaten him into nothing, made him invisible and his mirror a celebrity, taken every piece of himself that he loved and used it until it had burned away to ash, and Louis cannot forgive it for that.</p>
<p>And it’s fucked up his boys. God, has the world fucked up his boys. Louis sees it every day, is haunted by the reminders carved into their bodies, and feels his flaming heart break just a little more every time he catches a glimpse of the pain that is their past - Harry’s pink scars, Liam’s black bags, Zayn and Niall’s sunken stomachs.</p>
<p>How can you forgive a world that has taken everything from you?</p>
<p>“Hi.”</p>
<p>Louis turns his head to look behind him, smiling despite himself at the sight of Liam with a crown of wildflowers in his hair. Harry’s work, no doubt.</p>
<p>“Hey,” he says, voice hoarse because he hasn’t spoken since yesterday, and stops walking, the dead grass and deader leaves crunching beneath his feet. Liam smiles wider, sliding an arm around Louis’ waist and pulling him into a kiss.</p>
<p>Okay, maybe not everything.</p>
<p>“Not that I’m complaining,” Louis whispers, keeping his hands fisted in his pockets to keep them from the cold that’s pinkened Liam’s nose. “But what was that for?”</p>
<p>Liam smiles. He unwinds his arm from around Louis’ waist and all at once the sky feels empty, though stars are still tingling on Louis’ lips. Desperate suddenly, Louis pulls one of his hands from its safe haven and wraps it around Liam’s, letting the galaxies wash over him again.</p>
<p>“Wanted to see you,” Liam answers, and his smile is so open. His eyes are bright, which is just so rare these days, and Louis loves him like this, unafraid of anything.</p>
<p>Liam starts walking, and Louis follows, at his side. They remain in stride together, equals, and Louis moves his hand only once, to weave their fingers together.</p>
<p>With the reminders of their pain, he tells himself, come the reminders of their pleasure. The scars from climbing trees, the bags from partying late. The way their stomachs would sink and expand like balloons when they laughed, all tangled together like atoms in a supernova.</p>
<p>Louis could do this forever. Walk in circles with Liam by his side, looking like youth and laughter and sunshine. Louis could live with this.</p>
<p>Over his shoulder, Louis can see Sophia and Danielle, following them. He offers them a smile, then turns back to Liam, whose own eyes search behind them worriedly.</p>
<p>“What?” He asks. “Is someone there?”</p>
<p>Louis shakes his head. He doesn’t know what Liam’s on about.</p>
<p>“Just the girls,” he answers, and smiles. Then the sadness is sinking back into Liam’s eyes, and Louis doesn’t know what happened.</p>
<p>“Oh,” Liam whispers, and stops. Louis stops with him, and waits for an explanation.</p>
<p>“Yeah?” He finally says, when it becomes clear that Liam has only stopped to stare, and Liam trembles back into reality.</p>
<p>“Nothing,” he says, giving Louis a shaky smile and a kiss. “I love you.”</p>
<p><em> Oh, </em>Louis thinks.</p>
<p>“I love you too.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>i see all your</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>flaws and imperfections</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They do not <em> give </em> to each other. They don’t do presents, don’t do holidays, because none of them know what day it is and age becomes irrelevant when you are as dead as they are.</p>
<p>They do not give to each other because they have nothing left to give. But a bouquet of roses, irises, bluebells, sunflowers, and forget-me-nots somehow finds its way from Liam’s hands to Zayn’s anyway.</p>
<p><em> This </em> is love. <em> This </em> is what they are, what they’ve always been. This love, <em> their </em> love, it has survived so long only because they have made the choice to give all of themselves to each other, even if their all is almost nothing.</p>
<p>Their love is not a pure thing. It is not an idea based in sugary sweetness with a bit of dark chocolate; their love is a river of thick black sludge that is impossible to breathe through. It is not caring, it is not perfect, it is not kind.</p>
<p>Their love is a goddamn fucking hurricane and Louis wouldn’t have them any other way.</p>
<p>Zayn blushes scarlet at the sight of the bouquet, murmuring a soft <em> thank you </em> as Liam settles down on the couch beside him, kissing his head. Niall grins up at them from his place tucked under Zayn’s arm, his clammy hands smoothing down Alexandria’s fur.</p>
<p>It must be a bad day if Zayn’s pulled Alexandria from his room. But his eyes are twinkling now, and the three of them are curled together like they fit for once in their lives, so Louis doesn’t dare ask.</p>
<p>Arms are thrown around him from behind, Harry’s laugh loud in his ear. Louis grins despite himself, all too happy to accept the kiss Harry presses to his lips.</p>
<p>“Welcome back, Lou!” He says happily, and Louis is reminded once again of all the sunshine this boy can encompass if given the freedom to be himself. It saddens Louis immeasurably that it’s been so long since he’s seen this side of Harry, but he does his best to shove that sadness down, twisting around until Harry is buzzing in his arms.</p>
<p>“Hey, love,” he rasps, kissing Harry’s cheek, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Zayn bend down and kiss Niall while Liam watches with a smile.</p>
<p>The rain pours down like always, but something’s different. Through the clouds, Louis can see the stars.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>but that’s what makes me</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>love you more</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Did you know that the rain is actually made of your tears?</p>
<p>Not naturally, no no. But if you dare to cry outside, then your pain will sink into the ground, and from it will grow flowers. And those flowers will shine with dewdrops on Sunday mornings, and those dewdrops will evaporate into the air. And that air will travel up to the clouds and make its home in one until it turns grey and old, and then that cloud will cry itself to death, returning your tears to the earth. And then those tears wind up in a reservoir and are eventually steamed into your Monday morning coffee, and you see the person you love most in the world dancing stupidly to music you know they hate and your eyes mist up with long-suppressed emotion and then you’re crying all over again, chasing them out into the rain and kissing them hard as your tears once again fall with the cloud’s.</p>
<p>This is the shit Louis’ brain rambles on about at five in the fucking morning when he wakes up amongst three sleeping boys to see the fourth spinning around under a storming grey sky, barefoot on the muddy grass in an open dirty sweatshirt and pajama pants that are too small for him. It makes him smile, how the overgrown curls stick to Harry’s face like kisses, the imprints of their wandering lips and hands. And Louis can’t sleep when the first love of his life is dancing out there in an empty field on his own, so he scrambles downstairs while pulling on a wrinkled jean jacket, stopping only once in the living room to throw Animal Flag’s <em> St. Cecilia’s </em>on the record player, beaming as the house shakes with the force of every other record player joining in all at once.</p>
<p>Fucking <em> god, </em> it feels good to be alive.</p>
<p>“Hazza!” Louis shouts at the top of his lungs, ignoring how they burn in protest as he runs as fast as he fucking can towards the the boy he loved first and the boy he’ll love last, the smile etched into his face feeling permanent, if only for a moment.</p>
<p>He crashes into Harry as soon as he turns, colliding with the huge ass butterfly he’s come to know so well over the years, tracing it with his fingers and tongue for hours at a time. Then Harry’s arms are coming up around his neck and his hands are in Louis’ hair and their smiling mouths are meeting in the sweetest kiss Louis’ had in ages.</p>
<p>“I’d marry you, Harry,” Louis says, as softly as he can, breathless against his favorite person in the whole wide world, and Harry beams, soaked-through curls bouncing as he kisses Louis again and again, neither of them needing to state the <em> if. </em> The <em> if </em>is upstairs in the bed they all share, holding each other in a fitful sleep that escapes dreams.</p>
<p>“Yes,” Harry mumbles against his lips, tugging him closer. They fall back into the grass, rolling around in the mud and puddles as they laugh, eventually settling with Harry hovering over him, leaning down to kiss him again.</p>
<p>They always used to be this way. This used to be everything Louis knew.</p>
<p>And he wouldn’t change it. He could never change it. Even as he settles in Harry’s lap, wrapping him in his arms and hooking his chin over his shivering shoulder, and sees Taylor holding Ed’s hand, the two of them watching from the front steps, Louis can’t bring himself to wish they could change it.</p>
<p>The old days were good. I mean, don’t get him wrong, they were terrible, but they were good. The five of them were young and together and full of naive and foolish hope, and they were all smiling. They had no scars and no worries, the stars always caught in their eyes, and Louis would never change that happiness no matter what the cost of keeping it, because that happiness was real. And he would never change that they ended up here, in this haunted old house in the middle of nowhere, because the truth is this is where they were always gonna end up.</p>
<p><em> St. Cecilia’s </em> finishes, and on comes <em> Bitter And The Sweetness </em>by The Ready Set. And Louis’ heart is so full of stars he cannot breathe, trying to pull air into his lungs from the rain, but there is no mercy from the crying sky and suddenly Louis is laughing.</p>
<p>From the porch, Ed and Taylor stare. Their eyes are pitying, as if this is a sad moment, as if Louis is a mad person unaware of his own insanity and grasping at reality, but it is not and he will never be. Louis is the craziest person he knows, in love with four others who have lost their heads, and he could never be sad about it.</p>
<p>Who wants reality? Who wants pain? Who wants boring predictable life and its structured choices, traps set from the moment you take your first breath?</p>
<p>Who really <em> wants </em> to be normal?</p>
<p>Not Louis. Not his boys. Never ever ever.</p>
<p>Louis is gonna be crazy forever. And as Harry presses his hands to his cheeks, leaning down to kiss him, Louis finally knows for certain that that isn’t a bad thing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>we got such</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>a spiritual connection</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Louis Tomlinson is not a reliable person. He is unpredictable and angry and more of a storm than a sunny day, and his temperament is faulty and prone to explosions. He can’t count the number of times he’s burned someone into ash on impulse, unable to see far enough ahead to take the consequences into account before opening his mouth. His love is the biting, ferocious, unforgiving kind, and he’s made no move to change that for anybody, and maintains that he never will. He shouldn’t have to change for anyone to love him.</p>
<p>But then these four, they already do. And they deserve better than the flames he’s doused them in, the gasoline he’s made them cry. They deserve somebody steadfast, somebody thoughtful, somebody whose laugh is never meant to hurt.</p>
<p>Louis wants to be that for them. He never had to change for them to love him, never had to convince them of anything other than the truth, but then maybe for that feat alone they deserve a reward. Maybe they deserve for him to change, just a little bit. Because Louis doesn’t really hate himself the way they hate themselves, doesn’t really want to change any of the scars or the smiles, but sometimes to grow you have to change. And Louis has always said he wants to be young forever, but he can’t help but think, yet again, that maybe growing old beside these boys wouldn’t be so bad.</p>
<p>But that means putting in the work. That means changing. That means becoming an adult, not lulling behind in this warm safety of childlike immaturity he’s stayed in for so long, fighting against any attempts of anyone to draw him out.</p>
<p>Is it worth it? Is it worth letting go of his youth, allowing age to claim him? Is it worth becoming exactly what he never wanted to in order to stay with these four fucked-up boys in the middle of nowhere?</p>
<p>He looks up from tearing apart the bluebell in his hands. Beside him, on the steps, sit his boys. Liam, watching the pink skyline with a soft smile. Zayn, his head on Liam’s shoulder as he battles colorless dreams. Niall, fingers weaved through Zayn’s limp ones without complaint. And Harry, smiling down at a sunflower as he strokes its leaves.</p>
<p>They’re fucking nutcases. They’re <em> Louis’ </em> nutcases.</p>
<p>“You alright, Lou?” Harry asks, innocent as always. A smile blooms onto Louis’ face without invitation, but for once he sees no reason to stop it, reaching out to tuck some of Harry’s stray curls behind his ear. Harry blushes, and Louis’ ashen heart jumps in his chest.</p>
<p>
  <em> Yes. This is worth it. </em>
</p>
<p>“Yeah,” he says, all soft like someone he’s never known before, and Harry smiles, leaning in to peck him on the lips before turning back to Niall, pressing their foreheads together and murmuring something to him that Louis can’t quite hear.</p>
<p>
  <em> You are worth it. </em>
</p>
<p>And Louis <em> smiles. </em></p>
<p>Because <em> yes, </em> he thinks. <em> I am. </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>don’t you know</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>you’re fucking beautiful</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>You see, Louis’ love is made of cynicism. It is pulled from the caverns of loneliness, coated in the harshest snow, and delivered to Louis’ calloused hands for him to shove into the iron cage in his chest. He is ice and fire, flames to attack and cold to defend. He freezes out the world, and burns anyone who comes too close.</p>
<p>Louis’ love is not made for sunshine. It was not designed to be kind.</p>
<p>But he tries. He tugs his hands from his pockets first, forces them to stay by his sides even as they shake violently with the urge to strike. Then he uncurls them, finger by finger, and lets them shake into waves as he raises his arms. And finally,<em> finally, </em> he allows them to reach forward and <em> touch, </em> pulling his boys against him.</p>
<p>They are dancing. Niall is in his arms, and Zayn is in Liam’s. Harry is spinning wildly towards nothing with no one, but Louis would bet anything he’s imagining Taylor in his arms. Louis hasn’t seen her in days.</p>
<p>But she sings, oh how she sings. The record player is too loud; he cannot hear himself think, but he loves it. In place of every high he’s ever known comes a new thrill shooting down his spine, her voice loud and beautiful as it wraps around him.</p>
<p>
  <em> And I can still see it all in my mind… </em>
</p>
<p>Niall is beaming. His hair is overgrown and unkempt and no longer a single color and he is <em> beautiful, </em> everything beautiful shoved into one body. And Louis loves him, loves his warmth and his softness and his open-minded hard-headed <em> love, </em> the way he’s stuck with them no matter how far they tried to push him away.</p>
<p>
  <em> All of you, all of me, intertwined… </em>
</p>
<p>Liam, spinning Zayn in careful hands. He is gentle and tired and always, <em> always </em> kind, doing his best to do the right thing no matter how much it may hurt him. His anger is a bullet but his hands are that of a surgeon’s, able to pull you back from the dead with a single soft touch.</p>
<p>
  <em> I once believed love would be black and white… </em>
</p>
<p>Harry is defined by the flowers in his hair and the pink sweater falling off his shoulders. He is throwing his hands up in the air and not worrying about the vases his gangly arms send crashing to the floor, always ready to drag someone against him. He is the most accepting, most loving, most <em> human </em> person Louis has ever known, and he will always be the one that Louis loves best.</p>
<p>
  <em> But it’s golden, golden… </em>
</p>
<p>And Zayn. Zayn is Louis’ best friend. His constant, his partner, his <em> soulmate. </em> Louis doesn’t believe in soulmates, still; he finds it impossible. But Zayn, with his dark eyes and his small smile and his rambling poetry, he has always made Louis second guess.</p>
<p>
  <em> And I can still see it all in my head… </em>
</p>
<p>The five of them, their love was born from staying up all night. It blossomed from their prayers for someone to pretty please <em> take me home. </em> It grew into midnight memories made in countries they couldn’t remember the names of. It withered when five bodies tangled in a bed became four. It died when their daylit love faded into nighttime conversations between drunken more-than-friends grasping half-empty cups holding concoctions that were made in the a.m. on a dare.</p>
<p>
  <em> Back and forth from New York, sneaking in your bed… </em>
</p>
<p>Lovers come in pairs. So Louis supposes they can’t be lovers. But then they must be something else. Something better.</p>
<p>
  <em> I once believed love would be burning red… </em>
</p>
<p>They must be everything.</p>
<p>
  <em> But it’s golden, like daylight, like daylight, like daylight, daylight… </em>
</p>
<p>Louis does not allow himself the luxury of positivity. He just wasn’t born that way. He does not come from the elves, not like Niall. He does not come from the nymphs, not like Liam. He does not come from the fairies, not like Harry. And he does not come from the spirits, not like Zayn.</p>
<p>No, Louis does not come from magic. Louis comes from dragons.</p>
<p>
  <em> I don’t wanna look at anything else now that I saw you… </em>
</p>
<p>Louis is burning rage and fury that destroys entire towns. He is needless massacres and broken hearts and shattered swords. He is death and horror and every terrible thing. He is what any mortal would call a monster.</p>
<p>
  <em> I can never look away… </em>
</p>
<p>Louis is no human.</p>
<p>
  <em> I don’t wanna think of anything else now that I thought of you… </em>
</p>
<p>Louis fell into hell when he let himself love them. They rose to heaven on angel wings, but Louis fell far down where the devils are, and he made his home with them amongst the murderers and thieves. He has never fought against his fate, has never dared to question the ending written for him, and then maybe that’s been his problem all along.</p>
<p>
  <em> Things will never be the same… </em>
</p>
<p>Maybe Louis has to hope. Maybe Louis has to believe. Maybe Louis has to <em> try. </em></p>
<p>
  <em> I’ve been sleeping so long in a twenty-year dark night… </em>
</p>
<p>Soulmates can’t be real. The world cannot have planned that he would fall in love with the four most magical boys he’s ever met. The world cannot have planned that they would love him back.</p>
<p>
  <em> Now I’m wide awake… </em>
</p>
<p>But while Louis doesn’t believe that he was made for love, he does believe that he was made for them. Them, and them only.</p>
<p>
  <em> And now I see daylight, I see daylight… </em>
</p>
<p>Niall has found his way into Harry’s arms. Harry has molded his body against Liam’s chest. Liam has threaded his fingers through Zayn’s. And Zayn has looped his arm through Louis’.</p>
<p>
  <em> I only see daylight… </em>
</p>
<p>These are the moments the world is built on. The moments when no one is watching. These are the moments Louis could never live without.</p>
<p>
  <em> You gotta step into the daylight, and let it go, just let it go, let it go… </em>
</p>
<p><em> I love you. </em>He gets it now.</p>
<p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p>
  <em> we’re all looking for someone </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> whose broken pieces mesh with our broken pieces </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> and something whole emerges. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> - Bruce Springsteen </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>i will die</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>if i don’t try</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Louis isn’t a romantic. He actually kinda sucks at the whole romance thing, if he’s being honest. That’s always been more Harry’s department.</p>
<p>Louis thinks in metaphors, but he does not think in flowers. His mind runs rampant with fire and Grimm’s fairytales, not poetry, and he’s never cared enough to try and fix that. At best, he sings of pain; at worst, his songs are written in the ink of tears and blood.</p>
<p>The record player has gone quiet for the night. Louis is left staring at the ceiling in silence, wondering what time it is and then wondering why there are no clocks around to tell him. The silence is dead and long, and the stars that shine outside are dim behind the clouds. Beside him, three boys snore, and Louis doesn’t know how long he’s been asleep, but he knows enough to know someone shouldn’t be missing from their bed.</p>
<p>Louis turns his head to look over those still with him. Liam is snoring against his shoulder, and Niall is draped on his stomach across Harry’s chest, and so it must be Zayn who wanders their halls like a ghost, again.</p>
<p>Louis rises without purpose. He is as lost as any of them, never quite knowing which way to turn. Zayn has no consistent place he goes when he can’t sleep; he moves without direction, his eyes often closed, and the only thing they can count on is that he will never leave the house’s walls.</p>
<p>He stays within their prison, always. He does not dare to try and leave.</p>
<p>Louis pauses at the top of the third floor’s staircase. He strains his ears, listening for any whispers that may lead him to the boy lost within these halls. And sure enough, from below comes a familiar voice, as faint as it may be.</p>
<p>“My only one, my smoking gun, my eclipsed sun, this has broken me down. My twisted knife, my sleepless night, my winless fight, this has frozen my ground…”</p>
<p>Ten years, and still Zayn’s voice never ceases to amaze him.</p>
<p>The walk down the stairs is a slow one. He holds on to Taylor’s words echoing from Zayn’s chest, following them towards the living room, where the slightest golden glow spills through the doorway.</p>
<p>“My best laid plans, your sleight of hand, my barren land, I am ash from your fire…”</p>
<p>Louis stops just inside the doorway. He’s sure his eyes are just as haunted as this house is with their ghosts, but Zayn smiles at him anyway.</p>
<p>“You know I left a part of me back in New York,” he murmurs, keeping still as Louis draws closer. “You knew the hero died, so what’s the movie for?”</p>
<p>Louis hates that this is the song Zayn is singing. Hates that this is the one he feels is fitting. Hates that he’s not wrong; hates that this is what they’ve become.</p>
<p>“You knew it still hurts underneath my scars from when they pulled me apart,” Zayn sings, and Louis forces his hand from his side and outwards, asking though he’s still unsure of the question.</p>
<p>Zayn answers without regard for Louis’ inner turmoil, grasping his hand tight and standing on weak legs.</p>
<p>“You knew the password, so I let you in the door. You knew you won, so what’s the point of keeping score? You knew it still hurts underneath my scars from when they pulled me apart…”</p>
<p>Louis draws Zayn to his chest. He holds him by the waist, letting their chests rest together. And as their heartbeats start to slow, coming to a stop with each other, Louis begins to sway.</p>
<p>“But what you did was just as dark,” he rasps, because Zayn has stopped singing, something painful and guilty in his eyes. “Darling, this was just as hard, as when they pulled me apart…”</p>
<p>Zayn inhales sharply. Louis can only nod.</p>
<p>“My only one,” Zayn starts up again, voice shaking. “My kingdom come undone. My broken drum, you have beaten my heart.”</p>
<p>Louis presses their heads together, side by side. Zayn’s forehead comes to rest in the crook of his neck, and Louis smiles.</p>
<p>“Don’t want no other shade of blue but you,” Zayn manages, voice thick with tears. Louis finishes the song, the only way he can think to have mercy.</p>
<p>“No other sadness in the world would do,” he whispers, and they sway.</p>
<p>From the rocking chairs, Gigi and Perrie watch silently. Zayn sobs, and Louis closes his eyes.</p>
<p>“Don’t want no other shade of blue but you,” he repeats, soft in Zayn’s ear like a promise. “No other sadness in the world would do.”</p>
<p>Zayn raises his head, his eyes glittering with tears. And when he kisses Louis, there is peace.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>damned</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>if i ask why</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Like all things, peace doesn’t last. She is fragile, she is glass, and, most importantly, she is not theirs to keep.</p>
<p>Still, she is kind enough to let them have her for awhile.</p>
<p>The morning comes, and Louis wakes to black. He blinks, wondering for a moment if he’s finally truly lost it, then pulls his head back and realizes that the black starless sky is Zayn’s hair.</p>
<p>And then Zayn stirs, and turns in Louis’ arms and smiles at him, and the stars are in his eyes.</p>
<p>Louis’ heart bursts into flames.</p>
<p>“Good morning,” Zayn murmurs, kissing Louis once, twice, three times before standing and pulling him up on shaky feet as well. He twines their fingers together and Louis falls in love all over again.</p>
<p>They wander from the living room together. There, watching the rain through the open door, is Harry, the wind blowing his tangled hair back from his face and his bare legs wobbling in the cold.</p>
<p>“Beautiful, isn’t it?” He asks, voice full of wonder, and something about it sparks magic to life in Louis’ chest, a sensation he’s missed for five or something years. From beside Harry, Niall meets his eyes and shrugs.</p>
<p>“What, Harry?” Liam dares, his hand wrapping around Niall’s. Harry’s smile stretches across his face so wide it looks as if his skin will break apart, but his dimples hold, and the sun is illuminated from his mouth as he laughs.</p>
<p>“This,” he says, throwing out his arms. “This, all of this. Us. The world. Life. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Fucking beautiful.”</p>
<p>Louis knows he’s mad. He isn’t stupid. But sometimes, when Harry suddenly looks more magic than human, Louis thinks that maybe he isn’t the only mad one.</p>
<p>The world is a rainbow of fading colors. The world is a garden of dead flowers. The world is a sky of flickering stars.</p>
<p>No, it’s not beautiful. It’s an ugly misshapen sphere of pain and hate. But Harry is smiling. Harry is shining. Harry is <em> here, </em> and maybe that is beautiful enough.</p>
<p>“Yeah, Hazza,” Zayn answers, soft. The record player chooses this moment to start up, Macklemore and Kesha’s <em> Good Old Days </em> spinning out like a fairytale. “Yeah, it’s beautiful.”</p>
<p>Harry whips around now, reaching out his hands. Hesitantly, Zayn and Louis take one, and Niall and Liam grasp the other.</p>
<p>“The door is open,” Harry whispers. “The door has been open for months. We can leave whenever we want to.”</p>
<p>Liam stiffens. Zayn’s eyes flick up to him, but he remains still by Louis’ side.</p>
<p>“But we don’t,” Harry carries on. “We don’t leave, and we don’t want to. We spent all those years slamming ourselves against that door, trying to break out into the open, and we never could. We gave up. And yet here we are.”</p>
<p>Louis doesn’t understand. He’s bloody mad. They’re all bloody mad.</p>
<p>God, Louis loves them.</p>
<p>“We have a <em> choice, </em> now,” Harry murmurs, dropping their hands and turning back towards the door. He’s crying, Louis realizes, but he thinks it’s a happy thing.</p>
<p>“We’re free,” Harry says, breathless. “We’re free.”</p>
<p>Niall reaches out for Harry’s shoulder. He never touches it, because Harry suddenly bursts forward and slams the door shut, pressing his back against it and sliding down to the floor.</p>
<p>“I love you,” he babbles, staring straight ahead at nothing with something old sparkling in his eyes. “I love you. And this time I get to keep you.”</p>
<p>It shouldn’t mean as much as it does. It shouldn’t make sense.</p>
<p>It’s just a fucking door.</p>
<p>Zayn swallows. He squeezes Louis’ hand, then pulls away and settles on the floor next to Harry, who takes his hand happily, humming as he knocks his feet together. Niall is next, weaving his fingers through Harry’s. And finally Louis and Liam lock eyes, and when they brush past each other, Liam kisses Louis’ forehead, hard and quick. He places himself beside Zayn, taking his free hand and kissing the back of it as Zayn smiles. And Louis takes his spot next to Niall, threading their fingers together and holding on tight.</p>
<p>“I’m gonna hold on to you forever,” Harry says, and laughs.</p>
<p>It feels like the end of something. Somewhere in the back of Louis’ mind, something else begins.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>this is something real</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>this is something right</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Louis is never really alone anymore. He wasn’t much before anyway, but now there’s always somebody with him - he’d find it odd if he wasn’t so afraid of the loneliness slowly consuming him. He can barely keep it back as it is.</p>
<p>Now, it’s Eleanor beside him. The rain has only just stopped, but the others refuse to go outside, as if there’s something terrifying out here. Louis doesn’t know why. He thinks they all know that if the ghosts are anywhere, it’s inside their old house that creaks and groans all through the days and nights without pause.</p>
<p>The ghosts are inside of <em> them, </em> or maybe they are the ghosts. Either way, Louis knows that there’s no danger outside. They won’t follow him here.</p>
<p>So he walks the perimeter of the wide open field they call their yard, the one the house stands stubbornly in the middle of, and he keeps his eyes on the ground, never glancing into the trees always on his right. They are too dark and too thick to be kind.</p>
<p>He’s too lost in his head. He’s wandered too far down the spiral staircase. Eleanor takes his hand and pulls him out.</p>
<p>“Talk to me,” she says, holding on tight. “Talk to me.”</p>
<p>He doesn’t want to. He hasn’t wanted to talk to anyone in a long time.</p>
<p>Loneliness was imbued in Louis’ bones since the beginning. There was never any escaping it.</p>
<p>“Why should I,” he answers. “You’re never around to talk to.”</p>
<p>This seems to give her pause. Her quiet is unsettling, as it has always been. Louis is not accustomed to the quiet.</p>
<p>“What do you mean?” She finally settles on, and he sighs. He wants to stop, wants to turn around and look her in the eyes, but his feet carry him ever forward, refusing to let him rest.</p>
<p>“I mean, you’re never around,” he says. “Sure, you show up sometimes, but then you disappear. You always disappear. And I can’t find you. I don’t know why, but I can’t find you.”</p>
<p>Eleanor knows the answer to his unspoken question. She isn’t Zayn, but she’s like him; there’s some powerful magic hidden in her bones, something that tells her everything about everyone. She hums, and it sounds like the mournful tune you might hear while rowing down the River Styx - Lana Del Rey’s <em> Gods Knows I Tried, </em>or something like that. A haunting presence that etches its notes into your lungs as if they’re paper. Which they probably are, if you spend long enough here.</p>
<p>“I can’t be found when you aren’t looking for me, Louis,” she finally says. “I am there when you want me, and gone when you don’t. My existence is entirely dependent on you.”</p>
<p>“What are you saying?” He asks, because she isn’t making any sense, and she sighs, dropping his hand. He’s suddenly so much warmer. Her hands are always cold.</p>
<p>“I’m not real, Lou,” she says. “I’m just someone you made up.”</p>
<p>“No,” he whispers, because she’s lying, though he doesn’t know why. “No, because I met you a long time ago. And they all met you too.”</p>
<p>Eleanor won’t look at him.</p>
<p>“You knew an Eleanor, once. She was kind and she was funny and she was beautiful, and she was your friend. She was there for the photographs, and she was there for the articles. <em> She was always there. </em> But then you went away, and she moved on. You never noticed. You made me.”</p>
<p><em> This is stupid, </em> Louis thinks. <em> This is stupid. </em></p>
<p>“Don’t fucking lie to me,” he hisses, trying desperately to stop now. His feet just keep on stepping.</p>
<p>“I don’t lie to you, Louis,” Eleanor says, still so calm, her hands tangled in front of her. “You don’t lie to yourself, so I don’t lie to you.”</p>
<p>“Stop,” he whispers. He’s not sure if it’s to his feet or to her. Either way, it doesn’t matter. They both ignore him.</p>
<p>“My heart is your heart,” Eleanor murmurs. “My eyes are your eyes. My voice is your voice. I am you.”</p>
<p>Louis shakes his head. He fists his hands in his hair, feeling his scalp whine in pain as he pulls.</p>
<p>
  <em> It’s a lie. It’s all a lie. </em>
</p>
<p>“You’re real,” he rasps. “You’re real. You’re my friend, Eleanor. You’re my friend.”</p>
<p>Eleanor looks at him now, but he suddenly wishes she wouldn’t. Her eyes are full of pity, full of sadness. They are just like Harry’s, whenever he says Taylor’s name.</p>
<p>“You know I’m right, Lou,” she says gently, reaching for his hands and pulling them from his hair. “Deep down, somewhere in that beautiful broken brain of yours, you know I’m right.”</p>
<p>Louis closes his eyes.</p>
<p>No. No.</p>
<p>“The others,” he gasps, his chest constricting in on itself. “The others, they’re real. You’re not the only one I see. You have to be real, because they’re real, and they see you too.”</p>
<p>Eleanor sighs, brushing her hand over his forehead and through his hair.</p>
<p>“No, Louis,” she murmurs. “They’re not real. I’m not real. None of us are real.”</p>
<p>“El,” he chokes, his feet suddenly planting themselves in the ground and rooting him to that spot like a flower. His mind flashes back to bluebells. “El, no. No, you -”</p>
<p>“We,” she whispers, helping him to his knees. She kisses his forehead. “We haven’t been real for a long time, Louis. A long, long time.”</p>
<p>He curls in on himself just as the rain starts up again. It pours down on him like the tears of a million lost souls, and he lets it. It can do nothing to him now.</p>
<p>There are footsteps. They fade into the distance. Louis listens to them leave.</p>
<p>Eleanor is gone.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>never been in love</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>never felt at all</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>until now</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The thing about Louis’ love is that it’s broken. He dropped his heart somewhere a long time ago, he thinks maybe when Zayn left but doesn’t really know, and something in him changed. The cracks stayed there long after they picked it up and placed it back in his chest, and longer after it started beating again.</p>
<p>And those cracks, Louis filled them with golden loneliness. Like a plea, he begged on his knees for that golden rain to come, and when it did, he cried with it, unable to see farther than the nearest raindrop. It was the brightest thing he had ever seen, his entire body encompassed in yellow, and also the darkest, his soul black beneath his ribs and dying beneath his heart.</p>
<p>Louis’ love comes with loneliness. It cannot be undone, the way it healed; like a broken bone not set right, it remains twisted. Misshapen. Wrong. Louis’ love is a cup that’s always empty, but you will love him fully anyway.</p>
<p>The gold has grown him wings. They are wide and grey and made of bone and brittle feathers. They are ugly and cold and sharp. They are not made to be loved, not made to wrap around a child in the same way the others’ are. Maybe this is why Louis has spent so long trying to hold invisible people in them, people whose faces bleed and bruise but always, always smile.</p>
<p>Louis’ love is undeserving of reciprocation. No one wants such a damaged love. No one should.</p>
<p>And yet, as Louis lies there on the muddy grass, staring up at the rainy grey sky, feeling like a tornado in a hurricane, there are footsteps. And there is someone, lying down beside him, taking his hand. There is Harry, loving him.</p>
<p>Of everything that Louis does not deserve, he thinks perhaps Harry is the epitome.</p>
<p>Their love is a firecracker. It burns and it pops and it explodes into sparks that burn everyone around them; it should have died after its first eruption. Instead, it grows still, held in the palms of Louis’ burnt hands all too tightly.</p>
<p>Harry doesn’t try to talk. Louis’ language is not that of words, just like Zayn’s is of riddles and poetry; Niall speaks with his hands and Liam speaks with his movements and Louis speaks with his silence and Harry, the only one of them to whom words mean anything at all, he has learned every one.</p>
<p>Love, yes, love is a language. And while Louis has never been fluent, Harry has never stopped trying to teach him.</p>
<p>“I love you,” Louis says. His voice is hoarse and mangled, the sound of something shredded and torn still masquerading as a dress. “I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>It is not an apology Harry will understand. Harry does not need apologies; he is all too forgiving towards the mistaken. He will forgive the unforgivable. Louis knows this all too well.</p>
<p>Harry squeezes his hand. Louis hears him.</p>
<p>
  <em> I know. </em>
</p>
<p>It is not enough.</p>
<p>“Stay,” Louis tries, but it feels so foreign  on his tongue. He wonders if Harry understands.</p>
<p><em> Always, </em>Harry promises, his fingertips forcing bruises onto Louis’ skin, but it feels empty.</p>
<p>Lost is a love in which there are no words, and Louis ran out of them long ago.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>as i lay here in your bed</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>i need you on my chest</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There’s this poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye. Louis does not care to remember things much, but this poem he always does. Whether that is a blessing or a curse, he does not know.</p>
<p>
  <em> Do not stand at my grave and weep; </em>
</p>
<p>He sees it reflected in their eyes sometimes. When it’s late at night and he’s thinking too hard. And sometimes he hears it, when the crickets have gone silent but the bluebells are still singing.</p>
<p>
  <em> I am not there. I do not sleep. </em>
</p>
<p>It is nearly three now. The others are fast asleep, all tangled up in the bed they’ve called theirs for weeks now, but Louis still slinks back to his own every once in awhile, just to remind himself what it’d felt like to lose them.</p>
<p>So here he is. Lying alone in a bed that doesn’t really feel like his, surrounded by ghosts and chanting a poem that has meant nothing for years.</p>
<p>
  <em> I am a thousand winds that blow. </em>
</p>
<p>There are seven ghosts. He knows only four.</p>
<p>The other three, he feels he should. But their faces are unfamiliar, as utterly unassuming as a blank canvas, and he is free to throw his guesses at their pitying eyes like shards of glass.</p>
<p>
  <em> I am the diamond glints on snow. </em>
</p>
<p>Taylor, her lips are chapped and pink. He wonders when she stopped donning her red lipstick, then remembers that red is the color of blood and feels like crying. Her eyes seem dead, so unlike the starry blue sky he’s always known them to be, and Louis wonders what went wrong.</p>
<p>
  <em> I am the sunlight on ripened grain. </em>
</p>
<p>He wants to ask, but he has lost his voice. He opens his mouth and croaks like the hacking breaths of a dead man, and Taylor only smiles at him, raising a finger to her lips and shaking her head.</p>
<p>“Shhh,” she says, and the tears spring to Louis’ eyes and spill.</p>
<p>
  <em> I am the gentle autumn rain. </em>
</p>
<p>Ed holds tight to Taylor’s hand. It is a gentle thing, his grip, but his eyes have lost their twinkle. With a face void of emotion, that fond half-smile absent, Louis wonders what happened to all the stars. What has become of those blinking lights that sparkled in the sky and in their eyes; where have their souls gone?</p>
<p>Their disappearance is cruel. For all his crimes, Louis does not know what this is punishment for.</p>
<p>
  <em> When you awaken in the morning’s hush, </em>
</p>
<p>Perrie, she is quiet. They are all quiet, he supposes, but she seems somehow more silent than the others, her green eyes a forest of golden fireflies. Those, he used to think, were stars too.</p>
<p>She is still. She does not ripple in the air like a mirage. <em> She must be real, </em> Louis tells himself, <em> she must be real. </em></p>
<p>
  <em> I am the swift uplifting rush - </em>
</p>
<p>And Eleanor, oh Eleanor, she is beautiful. She is still so beautiful, even with the tear tracks still on her cheeks from earlier today, even with her chipped nails and cracked lips, even with her shaking hands curled into fists and bleeding, half-moon scars blooming on her palms. She is his salvation, his angel, the only one here for him - the others, he’s sure, have conjured themselves here for his boys, for the boys they loved once and trust him to love now.</p>
<p>He wants to say sorry. That trust has been broken so many times.</p>
<p>
  <em> Of quiet birds in circled flight. </em>
</p>
<p>The other three, they are silent as they wait for his eyes to gloss over them. Their eyes are sad, haunted, and Louis wants to tell them that they are the ghosts here. They have no right to be haunted.</p>
<p>
  <em> I am the soft stars that shine at night. </em>
</p>
<p>Instead, he looks them over. Brown eyes, green eyes, blue eyes. Long hair; black, brown, blonde. All young, all beautiful, all dead.</p>
<p>Louis cannot decide whether to hate them or not.</p>
<p>
  <em> Do not stand at my grave and cry; </em>
</p>
<p>“Are you real?” He whispers, not brave enough to ask but certainly reckless and tired enough, and they all smile, their seven sad grins a dim light in the dark.</p>
<p>All at once, they shake their heads.</p>
<p>
  <em> I am not there. I did not die. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>to warm me all the time</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>to tickle with your breath</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>sweeting on your lips</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When he wakes, the air is clear and sweet. No longer is it filled with rancid smoke and chilling silence; instead he is pulled from blackened dreams to raw cinnamon and joyous laughter drifting upwards from downstairs. And there is singing, beautiful and clear singing, and it makes Louis want to cry.</p>
<p>You see, their love has been tested by millions. So many have tried to destroy it, to claim it, to steal it for their own. And yet it remains theirs, and their voices sing it strong.</p>
<p>“I grab your hand and then we run to the car,” comes Niall’s sweet sweet rasp, and Louis’ shaky hand finds the banister. He holds it fast, staring down at the thousands of steps keeping him from his boys, the steps he will have to climb down on shaky legs with shaky hands and shaky resolve.</p>
<p>“Singing in the street and playing air guitar,” Niall continues, and the sound makes itself at home in the many empty crevices of Louis’ broken heart. “Stuck between my teeth just like a candy bar, and I wonder if it goes too far to say -”</p>
<p>It’s a risk he’s willing to take.</p>
<p>“I’ve never recognized a purer face,” Harry takes over, and Louis can imagine Niall kissing him, the way Harry’s face fits perfectly in all their hands. Everything in him is warm. “You stopped me in my tracks and put me right in my place.”</p>
<p>And then there’s Zayn. Probably twirling Liam in his careful arms, probably smiling ever so softly, probably bone tired and yet touching them with gentle hands always.</p>
<p>“Used to think that loving meant a painful chase,” Zayn murmurs, and he’s so beautiful Louis can hear it, though still all he sees is steps. Steps and steps and steps, and yet all worth taking.</p>
<p>“But you’re right here now and I think you’ll stay,” Liam answers, voice as soft as summer rain, and Louis’ feet touch the floor just as his whisper touches the air.</p>
<p>“Oh, we’re dancing in my living room, and up come my fists,” he sings, and it’s coarse like brittle sandpaper but they all smile, blinding him with their starlight. He swallows.</p>
<p>“And I say I’m only playing but, the truth is this,” he tries a little louder, nearly in the doorway now. The floor is so cold beneath his bare toes. “I’ve never seen a mouth that I would kill to kiss! And I’m terrified, but I can’t resist…”</p>
<p>Harry’s the one who reaches out to him. Takes Louis’ trembling hands in his own and smiles, squeezing his fingers gently, a cradle of sunlight and gold.</p>
<p>“I say,” Harry murmurs, looking right into Louis’ eyes, and it feels like a fairytale. The happy kind. The Happily Ever After kind. “Beautiful stranger, here you are, in my arms and I know…”</p>
<p>Zayn’s arms come up around his waist from behind. His lips are on Louis’ neck, his fingers on his hips, his voice in his ear.</p>
<p>“That beautiful strangers only come along to do me wrong and I hope…”</p>
<p>Liam, taking one of Louis’ hands from Harry’s and holding on tight. His smile is the welcoming glow of a billion stars, and Louis can glimpse the gates of something better.</p>
<p>“Beautiful stranger, here you are in my arms,” Liam whispers, eyes twinkling as they catch on Louis’ and hold. “And I think it’s finally, finally, finally, finally, finally safe -”</p>
<p>“For me to fall,” Niall finishes, standing from the rocking chair and putting his guitar aside, trading its warm wood for a different kind of warmth, the kind that comes with skin and bone and muscle. And then Niall is kissing him, and they’re all holding him, and the sun is shining through the windows in golden bursts of beauty and Louis -</p>
<p>Louis understands.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>there ain’t nothin’</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>common ‘bout us</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Healing comes slowly. Every book and movie will have you believe otherwise, glossing over the gruesome truths of some things and overexaggerating the plain simpleness of others, but honestly healing only comes through hard work, love, and a willingness to change.</p>
<p>You must fight your body. You must battle your mind. You must defeat your heart.</p>
<p>You must ignore every demon beneath your skin that tells you how worthless you are without them and instead take the hands of the angels that look at you like you are worth everything even when you’ve nothing to your name but broken bones and broken promises.</p>
<p>You must not lie. You must not cheat. You must not hide.</p>
<p>You must not run.</p>
<p>You must instead stand in the face of that ghastly beast which has claimed your soul and tell it with your arms and heart open that you are only a human, a human who has been sorely lost and sorely mistaken. You must allow all your most secret wishes and private thoughts to come spilling out of you like blood and ink, for when they have finally all been purged from your body, your veins will once again be filled with gold.</p>
<p>This is difficult. This is healing.</p>
<p>Louis learns this on a morning of heavy clouds and biting wind, the sky screaming and wailing as it cries and cries and cries. Louis wants to cry with it, but his tears disappeared long ago. At this point he wonders if crying would even do him any good.</p>
<p>He doesn’t know why he’s outside. It’s just, he woke up this morning tangled up in his boys and it was raining so hard the windows were shaking and something deep down in Louis’ soul <em> sighed. </em></p>
<p>Louis doesn’t listen too well. But he knows when it matters. And then, it <em> mattered. </em></p>
<p>So here he is. Looking out over the dying grass and trampled mud, the footsteps he has spent the past few hours beating into the earth as the sky mourned and aged grey from black. There were no stars, there have been no stars for days, but Louis holds those he loves close to his chest, and they keep him warm enough.</p>
<p>Their garden is filled with dead flowers. Wilting irises, withering forget-me-nots, shrivelling roses, decaying sunflowers, waning bluebells. The funny thing is, Louis can’t remember if they were ever alive.</p>
<p>It seems something one should remember, isn’t it? After all, all dead things were alive at some point. How else could they be dead?</p>
<p>And so Louis is once again reminded of his soul. His body and heart and mind, the way they followed his soul when it latched on to the escape presented to it and held on too tightly, unable to let go even after Louis had accepted the ghosts as friends. Now, Louis is haunted by memories, or rather, the ones he finds himself missing.</p>
<p>He’s thinking so hard he nearly trips, walking with his eyelids open but his eyes closed, and catches himself on the ground, his hands muddy and his skin scraped against something sharp. He looks down, wondering if shattered glass has somehow made its way into their sanctuary, but instead he finds the tips of plastic baggies sticking out of the dirt.</p>
<p>His bones go cold. The rest of him follows until his teeth are chattering and he has to grind them together to be rid of their conversation. He digs and he claws and he tears at the ground until it gives way beneath his shaking hands, caving in on countless plastic bags housing those demons he made the mistake of letting in all those years ago.</p>
<p>He is on his knees at the altar of a religion he now realizes he gave up long ago. He no longer recognizes his old gods, instead taking the bags from their grave and staring at them with new eyes.</p>
<p>He has changed. He has changed without even realizing it, without even noticing. He has become someone he never thought he had the power to be; he has become real.</p>
<p>And into his still hands, Louis cries.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>in this ordinary world</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>where nothing is enough</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Louis makes it home one step at a time. The plastic bags feel heavy in his hands, but he knows he’ll be rid of them soon enough. All he has to do is make it back home.</p>
<p>Make it back home, and this will all be over.</p>
<p>It is not a quiet revelation. Not like his love for them, which crept up on him like death herself; no, this revelation is loud and blooming and <em> alive, </em> proof that he is still here.</p>
<p>After everything, he is still here.</p>
<p>The door is open. The door is always open, now. Harry likes it that way, and there is an unspoken agreement amongst the rest of them that it is better they be cold than Harry be sad.</p>
<p>Harry himself stands at the kitchen island, laughing at something Zayn’s said. Niall’s hand is clasped in Zayn’s over the table, and in Liam’s under it, and it makes Louis smile, though only momentarily, as Harry’s laughter dies the moment he sees the bags in Louis’ arms.</p>
<p>“Louis,” Harry breathes, like a plea, but Louis can only smile. For once there is no guilt to reverberate around his sternum; his heart is quiet, still and quiet. Like his hands as they drop the bags into the waste bin, his eyes twinkling with the stars he thought he’d lost long ago.</p>
<p>“Plastic doesn’t decompose, Hazza,” he says, gently, and kisses the corner of Harry’s parted lips. “Best be puttin’ these in the trash now, aye?”</p>
<p>Harry doesn’t speak. Neither can anyone else. Louis smiles wider.</p>
<p>“I’m gonna go wash up,” he murmurs, wiping his muddy hands on his jeans. Everything is grass stains. “I think it’s about time I’m clean, don’t you?”</p>
<p>He turns to go, his heart thumping in his chest. Their eyes are all too glassy, their smiles all too gone. It is so quiet.</p>
<p>And then -</p>
<p>Harry starts laughing. The sound is golden and beautiful, spilling into Louis’ heart and healing every break, and when it has finished its kintsukuroi, Harry’s hands are holding his face and his mouth is on Louis’, his laughter still echoing around the room like sunrays.</p>
<p>“I love you so much,” Harry mumbles, and then he’s crying, and then they’re all laughing and crying. And then Zayn and Liam and Niall are all wrapping their arms around the two of them without a single care for the mud they’ll all surely be covered in now, and the four of them stand breathing their love into Louis’ skin.</p>
<p>Louis closes his eyes. He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to.</p>
<p>This is home. This is peace.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>everything is grey</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>mistake your love for lust</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The world is anew in his hands. It is impossible to explain, how infinite everything suddenly seems, now that the sun has yet again risen. Louis cannot hear anything but the heart beating in his chest and the voices in his head.</p>
<p>In the bathroom, Taylor is waiting, a redheaded man beside her. He holds her hand carefully, like she’s something breakable, and Louis frowns, his brow creasing in worry. Taylor has not been breakable for a long time.</p>
<p>He does not know who the man is. He doesn’t feel the need to ask.</p>
<p>The shower sounds like rain when he turns it on. As soon as the first droplet hits the floor, Taylor’s own tears come spilling out of her.</p>
<p>And when she cries, she sings.</p>
<p>Louis has never understood it. He does not pretend to. He only knows, deep in his chest where the unhealed scars hide, that when Taylor cries, she sings.</p>
<p>“You taught me the courage of stars before you left,” are her first words, and Louis is thankful for the droplets slipping down his body from the showerhead, if only so he can discount those on his face. “How light carries on endlessly even after death. With shortness of breath, you explained the infinite. How rare and beautiful it is to even exist…”</p>
<p>Louis hates crying. He has always hated crying. But these tears, these sadnesses, he cannot hate them. Instead he lets them fall unbidden, as free as his own self now is.</p>
<p>“I couldn’t help but ask for you to say it all again,” Taylor murmurs, and through the curtain Louis can see her silhouette stand from its crouch and press itself into that of the man, the two of them fitting together like puzzle pieces. “I tried to write it down, but I could never find a pen…”</p>
<p>“I’d give anything to hear you say it one more time,” the man joins in, his voice like wicker and honey tea on Sunday mornings, and something locked in Louis’ chest comes undone from its cage. “That the universe was made just to be seen by my eyes…”</p>
<p>Louis closes his eyes. Their blue is pouring down faster and faster, and soon the sobs come ripping from his throat, deep and gutteral and raw with every emotion he’s felt for ten goddamn years.</p>
<p>“I couldn’t help but ask for you to say it all again,” the man continues, alone. “I tried to write it down, but I could never find a pen. I’d give anything to hear you say it one more time -”</p>
<p>“That the universe was made,” Taylor seems to find herself, her voice wracked with pain and fondness, and Louis reaches for the knob. “Just to be seen by my eyes…”</p>
<p>He turns it. Taylor and the man go quiet instantly, and now the only rain that falls is that from Louis’ eyes. He looks up at them, and he knows they see his soul, even through their closed eyes.</p>
<p>“With shortness of breath,” he rasps, though he has never heard this song before in his life. “I’ll explain the infinite…”</p>
<p>Louis holds out his hands, palms up. They are still dripping with the rain and the water and the tears, and Louis laughs to himself, watching as everything is washed away: all the pain, all the joy, all the sorrow. All gone.</p>
<p>He sinks to his knees. The words make their home in his chest, though he voices nothing.</p>
<p>
  <em> How rare and beautiful it truly is that we exist. </em>
</p>
<p>And then suddenly, Louis is human.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>when i hold you</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>in my arms</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sometimes Louis forgets the world is ending. It can be so easy to, when everything else is already so miserable or already so perfect. And so Louis, caught up in the stars shining in the night sky and the warmth of the boys sleeping beside him, forgets.</p>
<p>It seems impossible, now, to care. He probably should care, right? That’s what people do, when the world ends in the movies: they unite, they fight, they care.</p>
<p>Louis doesn’t do any of that. Louis doesn’t unite; he travels his own path and hopes the others’ will cross his every now and then. He doesn’t fight; he gives up as easily as the sun on a winter day and lets himself burn out after only a few flickers. He doesn’t care; he hates and scorns and mocks everyone and everything, just like those old media tabloids he’s always hated so much. Louis is not the hero; Louis is the protagonist. He is only one person, he has only ever <em> been </em> one person, he will only ever <em> be </em> one person, and no one has or will ever rally behind him. And he doesn’t want them to.</p>
<p>If there were a war, Louis would be the one attacking. Louis is not the good guy; he is never on the right side of things. It has taken so long for him to earn this alone, the home that trembles beneath his every footstep. Louis has no feelings for anything of this earth other than the four boys surrounding him now, and he is not entirely sure they belong to her anymore anyway.</p>
<p>If it were up to Louis, the world would have burned a long time ago.</p>
<p>As it is, Louis is no god - not that there are any. Louis lost his faith in humanity years back, and his faith in anything else quickly followed. Louis is a careless, merciless, faithless man.</p>
<p>And yet, Louis thinks with rage simmering under his skin, he is the one the world has chosen to leave alone.</p>
<p>No, he did not make it out unscathed. No one ever does. But his skin is clean, his eyes are bright, his hands are still. You could not read the story of his life from his body; it is written in invisible ink.</p>
<p>But his boys. His boys, their stories are unmissable.</p>
<p>Carved in violent strokes into Harry’s wrists, slits holding their shape long after they’ve scabbed over; scratched into Zayn and Niall’s ribs, thin and empty and hollow beneath sweaters meant to shield them from the claws of insecurity; burned into Liam’s eyes, fear and sadness plaguing bruised skin beneath glistening irises.</p>
<p>Why should Louis get to hide? Why should he be allowed the luxury of lies when they have been forced to tell the truth?</p>
<p>And so Louis sits up in bed and reaches across Liam for the nightstand, where Zayn’s pens are resting for some reason having to do with artistic liberation that Louis will never understand, and he picks up a red Sharpie. And he stares into the mirror that rests above Harry’s dresser across from their bed, and he scrawls across his collarbone the only truth he’s ever known.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> broken fuck-up with the voices in his head </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s the only thing he can think to say. It’s the only thing that makes any sense.</p>
<p>Beside the mirror, Eleanor smiles. Louis thinks, without meaning to, <em> I’m sober, El. </em></p>
<p>Eleanor grins. She presses a hand over her heart, then extends it to him.</p>
<p>“And we’re all proud of you,” she says. <em>“You </em>are proud of you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>there ain’t nothin’</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>common ‘bout us</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Louis doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he must’ve at some point because when he opens his eyes he can see the dawn approaching through the window. The black has receded far far away, back to the soulful stars that Louis can no longer see. Zayn is cradling Niall to his chest in his sleep, and Liam has his arms wrapped around Louis’ waist, and Harry is gone.</p>
<p>Louis doesn’t want to move. He just wants to lie here forever, caught in the warm currents between these three bodies he knows oh so well, but the open door calls him in some silent voice, and so he kisses each of his boys’ foreheads once before standing on steady legs and carrying himself down two flights of creaking stairs.</p>
<p>There, in the living room, is Harry. The record player is on yet again, crooning the golden notes of <em> seven, </em>and Louis watches as Harry dances with Taylor, holding her close to his chest and smiling with his eyes closed, almost as if he’s happy.</p>
<p>Louis wants to trap him in this moment, hold him in a photograph and bring him to life in a snow globe. Wants to grasp Harry’s hands and pull him right back to London, right back to Princess Park and the only safe place they’ve ever really known; wants to hold him while the snow falls and nobody knows who they are and nobody cares. Louis wants that life with him - the one where they dance with gold rings on their fingers in nothing but boxers with the windows wide open on Sunday mornings.</p>
<p>But the chance for those days has passed now. And this moment, this awful, horrible, tragically beautiful moment that’s tearing Louis apart at the stitched-up seams, this is all they have.</p>
<p>“Hazza,” he whispers, because it’s the name he knows best and the one that fits in his mouth far better than any other, and Harry turns and smiles at him, dropping his arms from Taylor’s waist. She drifts to the corner on graceful feet, her hands folded in front of her, and Louis and Harry stare at each other across their abyss of a living room, Harry smiling and Louis not.</p>
<p>“Hi, Boo-Bear,” Harry says, all soft like a cloud, and Louis’ heart breaks open and spills golden goo everywhere.</p>
<p>“Hi,” he murmurs. “Why’re you up?”</p>
<p>Harry shrugs. Louis can see his hands twitching, knows he’s aching for touch because this is Harry and Harry is fluent in so many unspoken languages that Louis’ lost count but touch will always be his favorite.</p>
<p>“Couldn’t sleep,” Harry mutters, running his hands through his hair and turning back towards the record player. He stares at it for a moment before crossing the room in three long strides and batting the stylus off the vinyl, pressing his hands down on the table and closing his eyes.</p>
<p>Louis takes a tentative step forward. He thinks, sometimes, that Harry might be dying. Might be losing his magic to the grey that is this landscape, falling to the ghosts without anyone alive to hold on to.</p>
<p>It must be hard, Louis thinks. To love four dead people who are still breathing.</p>
<p>“Who were you dancing with?” He asks, waiting for Harry to say, <em> Nobody. Don’t worry about me, darling. </em> Instead, Harry laughs, his shoulders shaking and the record player beneath his hands doing the same.</p>
<p>“Taylor,” he mumbles. “Always Taylor.”</p>
<p>And something in Louis’ mind tells him not to ask. Taylor echoes the sentiment from the corner, her voice soft and hands drawn back, not daring to move.</p>
<p>“Don’t tell him about me, Louis,” she says. “Don’t ask him.”</p>
<p>Louis has never been very good at following directions.</p>
<p>“You can see her too?” Louis rasps, words scraping up out of his throat before he can even think them wholly through, and Harry’s eyes start to dim and flicker.</p>
<p>He says nothing. Louis, for once, doesn’t understand the silence.</p>
<p>Eternity passes. Louis waits, wishing his hands would start shaking again if only for the exucse to look away. But they are as still as ever when Harry finally breathes, reaching out to take them in his own.</p>
<p>“I love you,” he says, bringing Louis’ knuckles to his lips. He looks right into Louis’ eyes, and Louis’ heart trips in his chest and shatters. “I love you, Louis Tomlinson.”</p>
<p>And then Harry slips his arm around Louis’ waist, drawing him to his chest and pulling them around the room in what might by some stranger be called a dance, and Louis can only stare as Harry sings.</p>
<p>“Sweet tea in the summer, cross your heart, won’t tell no other. And though I can’t recall your face, I still got love for you…”</p>
<p>Louis tears his eyes from Harry’s wistful face and sets them on Taylor, who smiles sadly.</p>
<p>
  <em> We tried to tell you, love. </em>
</p>
<p>Louis can’t breathe. Harry leans down and presses their mouths together, and Louis squeezes his eyes shut, hoping his tears won’t fall. <em> I love you, </em>his heart beats, and as Louis’ lungs wilt like the dead bluebells in the garden, Harry breathes for him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>i wanna feel your love</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>just give me all your trust</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When Louis wakes, the sun has hidden itself away behind crying grey clouds. He thinks maybe it’ll come back soon, because when he woke up before it was dark and now Harry’s in his arms and it could only have been a few hours at most. Louis doesn’t understand time, but he knows it well enough.</p>
<p>Harry breathes softly against his chest. Louis takes a moment to run his fingers through his tangled curls, using his other hand to lift Harry’s wrists one by one to his lips, kissing the pink scars there. Harry mumbles something into his shirt, and Louis kisses his forehead, closing his eyes.</p>
<p>He could’ve had this. If their story had gone the way it should have, if they had followed the paths set out for them, if Liam had been right, Louis could’ve had this. Could’ve woken up every morning with this boy against his chest, breathing soft and slow and then laughing when Louis kissed him awake.</p>
<p>Instead, Harry wakes slowly, and kisses Louis first. He smiles, brushing his fingers through Louis’ hair, and stands on strong legs, reaching down to pull Louis up. He locks their fingers together, and Louis wonders how he could have ever wanted to love anyone else.</p>
<p>“Come on,” Harry murmurs, voice hoarse with sleep and sorrow. “Let’s go find the others.”</p>
<p>Louis follows without question. He’s long past the days when he had any right.</p>
<p>The others, as it seems, have already been up for awhile. The house smells like waffles drenched in syrup and peanut butter, with some bacon mixed in there somewhere. The doors to every room are open, just waiting for somebody to wander in and stay.</p>
<p>They find them in Niall’s room. The floor is littered with photographs, like always, but it’s different this time. Something has changed.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s the rain. Maybe it’s the open door. Maybe it’s them. Louis doesn’t know. Louis doesn’t care.</p>
<p>“Good morning,” Harry murmurs, and the others look up. Something like a smile crosses each of their faces at the sight of Harry’s messy hair and three-day-old sweater, and those smiles only widen as Harry reaches down and takes each of their faces in his hands, kissing them hello.</p>
<p>Louis stands awkwardly in the doorway as Harry settles beside Liam, sinking into his side. He doesn’t have that comfort with them the same way Harry does, doesn’t trust people to want him back.</p>
<p>It’s Zayn who shakes him from his revery, reaching out a hand.</p>
<p>“Hi, Lou.”</p>
<p>Fuck, don’t cry.</p>
<p>“Hi,” he whispers, taking Zayn’s hand and sitting criss-cross beside him. Zayn smiles, kissing him once before looking back towards the photos in front of them. Louis looks to Niall on his other side, who grins with enough sunshine to warm every cold bone lurking under Louis’ fragmented skin and kisses him long and slow, laughter spilling from his own body into Louis’.</p>
<p>Louis thinks something magical must happen when you meet the people you’re gonna spend the rest of your life with. He’s not sure if it’s the Merlin or the Morgana kind, but he knows it’s magic nonetheless.</p>
<p>From beside Zayn, Liam waves. Everything in Louis’ body catches fire.</p>
<p>He looks away, down at the photographs. There are thousands of them it feels like, filled with the smiling happy faces of people he doesn’t know.</p>
<p>Except there he is, smiling next to Harry and a redheaded dude, the one who’s always holding Taylor’s hand. And then there’s him and Taylor, with her plastered to Harry’s side as Louis talks animatedly to a pretty blonde girl with bright blue eyes.</p>
<p>As he combs through the photographs, silent in tandem with the others, it becomes more and more apparent that though he doesn’t know these people, he probably should.</p>
<p>There’s him and Eleanor, his hand on her hip as she grins down at him, captured in time with a drink in her hand and one leg on the couch. Next to them is Zayn, talking quietly to a girl with sandy hair and glittery hazel eyes who smiles like every flower in the world has bloomed at once.</p>
<p>In the photograph beside that one, Louis has his fingers tucked into Niall’s, whose head is thrown back in laughter at something the redheaded dude has said. Louis himself is smiling open-mouthed at a grinning, shaggy-haired Liam, whose arm is slung around the waist of a girl with dark hair and darker eyes. She’s laughing in that way that seems scripted but probably isn’t, some alcohol spilling out of the cup in her swaying hand.</p>
<p>And then there’s the photograph of Louis and Liam alone, scrunched beneath the mistletoe and laughing as Liam kisses Louis’ wrinkled nose. Behind them are all of the others from before, with the addition of a green-eyed brunette beauty who looks at Liam like he’s the something great they were always singing about back then.</p>
<p>These are people he knows. These are people he loves. These are people he should<em> remember. </em></p>
<p>He opens his mouth to ask what the fuck is happening to him but all that comes out is some sort of strangled croak. Zayn tightens his grip on Louis’ hand, but he’s not nearly strong enough to hold Louis down in the frail body he’s made himself at home in and suddenly Louis is running, running and sprinting and crashing out the door and away, leaving a slew of trampled photographs fluttering to the floor in his wake.</p>
<p>He can’t fucking <em> breathe. </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>common ain’t us</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>cause common ain’t enough</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That’s weird, right? It’s weird that he can’t fucking remember people he was apparently close enough to to look at like <em> that. </em> It’s weird that he can’t fucking breathe all the time. It’s weird that the world is fucking ending and the stars are always flickering out of existence and they’re fucking <em> here, </em> in this old house in the middle of nowhere with a million fucking record players in it that sing without ever being touched.</p>
<p>It’s winter. Louis is pretty sure it’s winter. The wind is biting and cold; the sky is grey and endless. They wear sweaters all the time and still are ice to the touch. Everything is bleak and dark and terrifying, so it must be winter.</p>
<p>And yet the woods surrounding them are thick with foliage. The rain that falls from the sky is never snow. The garden is teeming with blooming roses and irises and sunflowers and forget-me-nots and bluebells. And Louis doesn’t know jack shit about most things on this earth but he knows that nature dies when winter’s born.</p>
<p>So what the fuck is this? Where the fuck are they?</p>
<p>He crashes into his room before any of the others’ screams can reach his ears. He doubts they’ll follow him, because they never do when he’s like this, but just in case they do he slams the door shut so hard the edges splinter before locking it up, bolt and chain too.</p>
<p>He presses his back against the door, chest heaving. He looks around, eyes crazed and wild in a way they haven’t been since he last kissed smoke, and finds that even here, in his fourth floor bedroom in the house in the middle of who-the-fuck-knows-where, he’s not alone.</p>
<p>These are the people from the photographs. These are the people he <em> loves. </em></p>
<p>They’re lined up against the wall, some standing and some slouched, their knees pulled to their chests. In the windowseat, the redhead is clutching the hand of a blonde girl with bright blue eyes and ruby red lips stretched into a sad smile.</p>
<p>“Hi Louis,” she says softly, and Louis raises his finger towards her, his entire body shaking violently.</p>
<p>“Who the fuck are you?” He sputters, feeling his lungs constrict again and again. He gasps for air, then whips around towards the others, who all watch him sadly. “Who the fuck are you people?”</p>
<p>“Louis,” the shadows say. Louis backs into a corner, tripping over a jacket and falling into the bedside table with a deafening clatter. He smacks his lamp spastically and it shatters on the floor, cutting his hand open. But Louis has more important things to worry about than blood.</p>
<p>“Leave me alone,” he chokes out through a clogged throat. “Leave me alone, please. I don’t know who you are.”</p>
<p>From the shadows, Eleanor steps forward, her hands in her pockets. She stares down at him, not daring to try and come any closer. In his chest, his heart calms slightly at the sight of her, but there’s something fuzzy about her, something fading.</p>
<p>“Louis,” she murmurs. “How did you get here?”</p>
<p>Louis shakes his head. The glass is sharp and painful in his hand, so he rips it out, leaving an oozing gash. He blinks seven times in quick succession, looking back up at Eleanor, who keeps her eyes firmly on his, never straying to his open wound.</p>
<p>“Louis,” she says again, softer. He wonders how he can even hear her. “How did you get here?”</p>
<p>Again, he shakes his head.</p>
<p>
  <em> No. No. </em>
</p>
<p>“I drove,” he croaks, the tears readily falling now. “I drove. I got in my stupid ass rundown car that I still have for some reason and I drove.”</p>
<p>Eleanor’s eyes are a doctor’s looking at a terminal patient. She squats down in front of him, her forearms on her legs and her hands flopped in between her thighs.</p>
<p>“Tell me about it,” she whispers. “Tell me about the drive, Louis.”</p>
<p>Louis’ eyes flick to the others. They’re all silent, watching him with eyes sad as funerals, and in his chest, Louis’ heart stutters. He licks his chapped lips.</p>
<p>“Well, I - I was smoking, a little bit. Just a cigarette, nothin’ else, a-and it was so dark out. And there was no one else on the road and we were surrounded by trees and a streetlight was out and we… we…”</p>
<p>
  <em> Crashed. </em>
</p>
<p>He swallows.</p>
<p>“We… we…”</p>
<p>Eleanor’s eyes are weeping willows.</p>
<p>“Keep going, Louis.”</p>
<p>Louis lets his eyes fall, down down down. They come to rest on his hand, blood still trickling down like tears onto his favorite denim jacket.</p>
<p>“There was music playing,” he rasps. “Halsey. <em> New Americana. </em> It was blasting and the car was shaking with it. I coughed into my arm and threw my cig out the window, and some bush caught fire. I laughed.”</p>
<p>Eleanor nods.</p>
<p>“Yes. Then what?”</p>
<p>Louis swallows again. Thicker, this time. The tears well up again, and then fall silent and slow.</p>
<p>“Liam,” he murmurs, and licks his cracked lips. “Liam yelled at me. Said we should go back and put it out. I told him to shut it, said it was fine. He just kept shouting. I couldn’t think straight. And… and I turned around in my seat to knock some sense into him, just for a minute, and then…”</p>
<p>
  <em> Louis! </em>
</p>
<p>He blinks. Eleanor stares.</p>
<p>“And then?”</p>
<p>Louis can’t breathe.</p>
<p>“And then what, Louis?”</p>
<p>“And then Niall screamed,” he forces out. “Niall screamed, and there was a roadblock, and we were all screaming. And…”</p>
<p>
  <em> And Niall was crying. And Liam wasn’t moving. And everything was blurry and bright. </em>
</p>
<p>“And you crashed,” Eleanor finishes for him, hushed. “And you crashed.”</p>
<p>
  <em> And we crashed. </em>
</p>
<p>He looks down at his hand. The blood is still dripping, falling from the pool in his upturned hand, but the gash is nearly healed over. It should need stitches. It should hurt. It should <em> scar. </em></p>
<p>And yet here it doesn’t. It’s gone.</p>
<p>
  <em> We’re gone. </em>
</p>
<p>Slowly, Louis raises his head to meet Eleanor’s eyes. He just now realizes they’re a beautiful burning hazel.</p>
<p>Every star in the galaxy goes out at once.</p>
<p>“We… we didn’t make it out of that car accident, did we?”</p>
<p>The pretty brunette girl in front of him smiles. Louis wonders what her name is.</p>
<p>“No,” she says, shaking her head. “No, you didn’t.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>in this ordinary world</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>where nothing is enough</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Louis is dead.</p>
<p>How do you reconcile that with reality? How do you associate the end with something other than the black you’ve been running from your whole life? How do you deal with not believing in anything your entire life only to find out that belief never had anything to do with it?</p>
<p>How do you live knowing you are dead?</p>
<p><em> lovely </em>is on the record player now. Louis doesn’t think he’s ever felt more empty.</p>
<p>
  <em> I’m dead. </em>
</p>
<p>Everything is hazy. He presses his hands to the glass-covered floor and pushes himself up, taking no notice of the new wounds in his palms. They’ll close up soon enough anyway. Apparently.</p>
<p>He stands there, in the middle of his room. The people he doesn’t know, the people who know him, they are gone. He is alone, alone and dead, and something like grief settles in his chest.</p>
<p>
  <em> My boys are dead. </em>
</p>
<p>He breathes in deep. Pressing a bloody hand to his heart, he closes his eyes, listening to his heart beat beneath his ribs. He wonders how long he’s been fooling himself.</p>
<p>
  <em> We’re all dead. </em>
</p>
<p>He sits with his hand on the doorknob for what feels like an eternity. Finally, he turns it, opening the somehow unlocked door to a vacant hallway, filled with photographs and poetry.</p>
<p>
  <em> God, we’re all dead. </em>
</p>
<p>He takes the steps one at a time. Traces his bloody fingers along the banister, forces himself to move forward.</p>
<p>
  <em> Dead and gone and dead. </em>
</p>
<p>The front door is open, because Harry likes it that way. Louis stares. He reaches out and presses it closed.</p>
<p>It’s pointless. He knows now they can never leave.</p>
<p>“Louis?”</p>
<p>Slow as drowning feels, Louis turns his head towards the table, where his boys all sit. Zayn is the one who has spoken, his eyes searching Louis’ face worriedly. Absently, Louis realizes his hands are still bleeding and lifts them to see if the wounds have closed yet.</p>
<p>Harry gasps, his hands clasped over his mouth. Louis just stares at his healed hands, still dripping blood.</p>
<p>Voice ashen, he whispers, “How long have we been dead?”</p>
<p>He waits for someone to gasp. He waits for someone to cry. He waits for someone to <em> answer. </em></p>
<p>Silence greets him like a heavy blanket. Louis again forces himself forward, sliding gingerly into the chair next to Zayn and across from Liam, who takes Zayn’s hand under the table. Harry is still staring at Louis’ hands with glistening eyes, even as Niall pulls his hands from his mouth and holds them in his own.</p>
<p>Louis looks at Zayn. Looks at his best friend, at his heart, at his soulmate. Takes in his chapped lips and high cheekbones and starry eyes.</p>
<p>He curls his bleeding hands into fists. Harry flinches.</p>
<p>Zayn’s eyes flicker down and away. His hands are trembling, and the rest of him is not long to follow. Liam holds on to him tight, but it’s not enough to keep him still, and then suddenly Zayn is crying and his name is bitter on Louis’ tongue.</p>
<p>“Zayn.”</p>
<p>A sob tears itself from Zayn’s throat. He pulls his hands from Liam’s and buries his face in his arms, rocking the whole table with the force of his sadness. Liam just stares, his own tears falling quietly without any sobs to accompany them.</p>
<p>“Zayn,” Louis says again, as gently as he can muster. Everything is blank and meaningless.</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” Zayn chokes out, lifting his head and looking up into Louis’ apathetic eyes with his own sorrowful ones. “I don’t know, Louis, I really don’t, but probably awhile.”</p>
<p>From the other end of the table, Harry sucks in a sharp breath.</p>
<p>“What?” He rasps, voice strained and confused. Zayn turns towards him,  his face crumpling all over again.</p>
<p>“You killed yourself,” he whispers, his lips trembling as the tears spill faster and faster. “You killed yourself only a year after we all stopped working together. You slit your wrists and bled out in your bathtub. I’m the one you called.”</p>
<p>Sirens. Louis can remember sirens.</p>
<p>Harry pales, looking down at his wrists. The scars, despite it feeling like it’s been months, haven’t disappeared. They stay stubborn and pink on Harry’s arms, rough to the touch and eerily even. Louis wonders how they didn’t notice it. He hates that they didn’t notice it.</p>
<p>“I,” Zayn tries, voice sticky with tears, then swallows. “I overdosed. I killed myself too. I couldn’t get your voice out of my head; I couldn’t stand the thought of you being alone. I… I hated myself for not getting to you in time. So I did the next best thing.”</p>
<p>“You followed me,” Harry breathes. His eyes let slip silent tears. Zayn’s face crumples for a third time.</p>
<p>“I didn’t know what else to do,” he rasps. “I couldn’t just leave you there.”</p>
<p>Harry buries his face in his hands. Zayn wraps his shaking hands around the edge of the table and presses down so hard his knuckles pale to white.</p>
<p>“We left only a few months apart,” he whispers, and Louis hates that he won’t just say <em> died. </em> “The three of you, it was maybe two years later. I don’t know. They don’t have time here. It was… it was…”</p>
<p>“A car accident,” Liam finishes for him, his face ashen. “It was a car accident.”</p>
<p>Zayn opens his mouth, reaching out for Liam, but before he can touch him, Niall’s emotionless voice cuts through the air like the glass from the headlights.</p>
<p>“Liam instantly,” he says, the words hollow and heavy. “Me on the way to the hospital, and Louis in the early morning hooked up to a bunch of machines.”</p>
<p>Zayn loses any last sense of control he may have had. He collapses into Liam and cries, cries, cries.</p>
<p>Liam buries his face in his hair and does the same.</p>
<p>“Oh,” Louis says, and something in his chest finally settles and quiets. “Oh.”</p>
<p>Harry reaches out and takes his hand. Louis stares down at the table as Niall hides his face in Harry’s neck, choking on his sobs as they fight their way out of him.</p>
<p>In Louis’ head, that Mary Elizabeth Frye poem starts up again. He recites the words without feeling, without recognition. They are old and hopeless now, nothing but fragments collecting dust on the bookshelves in Louis’ mind.</p>
<p>He squeezes Harry’s hand.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>everything is grey</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>mistake your love for lust</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>You learn about death when you’re young. Very young. As soon as you’re able to understand the words people are speaking to you, you learn about death. Some people say they learned about death when they were five, or eight, or eleven or fifteen; they’re all wrong. You learn about death before you are even three years old.</p>
<p>First, you learn about death as a victory. You learn that it only happens to bad people, bad people who did horrible things to good people. And you learn to celebrate those deaths without question, even when something in the back of your mind tells you it isn’t right, because <em> that </em> is what makes a happy ending. In every story ever told, in every book ever read when you are young, a happy ending is a handsome good boy and a pretty good girl in love, and the ugly bad person dead at their feet. <em> That </em> is the happy ending you are taught. <em> That </em> is what you are told to strive for.</p>
<p>And death, at that point to you, only means that the story is over. It means that the good boy and the good girl will no longer be bothered by the bad person. This death often comes by means of a sword, wielded by the strong good boy while the weak good girl cries in the arms of the stupid bad person. This death is simple and boring and wrong, and it is the most fascinating thing you will see for years.</p>
<p>Some time later, death is given other causes. You see small things crawling across the floor in the spring and your mother squishes them beneath her shoe. You see pink noses peeking out from the walls and they are crushed by the traps your father sets. You see shapeless mounds scurrying across the road ahead and your parents drive over them with a disquieting <em> thump. </em> But still, you see death as something that happens only to bad things. To inhuman things. To forgotten things.</p>
<p>And then one day, the shapeless mound in the road is one you know the name of. It is the small furry friend you have played with every day since before you can remember, and you do not know how to live without it. You will cry into your mother’s belly and ask your father where it went and why it won’t come back and why there’s so much red and your parents will share a look and shake their heads at you. This is when you learn that death is permanent. This is when you learn that death happens to good things too.</p>
<p>You live on for a few more years. Your mother will take too many phone calls that make her forehead crease and your father will come home late from work and sit at the table long after dinner is over, going over papers he won’t let you draw on. Your parents will tell you they’re fine and you’re fine and everything’s fine and they’ll smile. And then one day your dreams of the good boys and good girls and bad people will be shattered as they tear you from your bed in your favorite pajamas and drive you down to a great big building you’ve only been in once, that time that you broke your arm. And you will look down at your grandmother, breathing through some thin plastic tube and wearing a weird shirt-like thing that makes her hugs hard and bony and everyone will be crying and you will not know <em> why. </em></p>
<p>Your grandmother will fall asleep. That is what you will think it is, sleep, because what else could it be? What else could this <em> thing </em> be? It is not death, because death only happens to bad people and inhuman things, you know this. And your grandmother was a good human. A good person who deserved a happy ending.</p>
<p>You will not remember most of this. You are too young to truly register anything about what is happening. Food will be left on your doorstep. Your house will be stuffed with people you don’t know, all wearing black. Your mother will, for the first time, tell you you can’t wear your favorite princess dress with the sparkly tiara. You can’t wear your superhero suit with the awesome fake muscles. You have to wear the itchy black sweater your aunt bought you last year and the pants you hid in hopes your parents would forget about them. And everyone will ask you if you are okay, and how you are doing, and they’ll all be looking at you with this expression that seems so sad and you cannot <em> understand, </em> because why wouldn’t you be okay and what does it look like you’re doing and why why <em> why. </em></p>
<p>It keeps happening. The years pass by, and your grandfather does too. They say it was a heart attack. You ask what your grandmother had; they say a stroke. And then your neighbor’s aunt has a sickness, which is confusing for you because you’ve had sicknesses before and you’ve always been fine. And then your friend’s mother is in a car accident. And then your classmate’s sister overdoses. And then you turn on the news and first understand the word <em> murder. </em></p>
<p>But up until this point, that word has always been <em> kill. </em> That word has always been <em> defeat. </em> That word has always been <em> The End. </em> That word is Happily Ever After, is the good boy and the good girl in love, is the bad person dead at their feet. You thought life taken by another was an honor. You thought the good boy was a hero. You thought it was <em> right. </em> And you stare at the stars for hours that night, and you wonder what the difference is.</p>
<p>You will grapple with that for years. You will never truly find the answer.</p>
<p>People begin to treat you like an adult. They start to say how tall you are and mean it. They give you high heels and watches and necklaces for your birthdays now, because those are all adult things. And you realize, somewhere around the time that you are first put in a health class and they say everything in the second person, that one day <em> you </em> could die, because up until now you have always been the good person and you have always been the hero and you have always been safe. It is now that the truth of it sets in: <em> you will die one day. </em> It does not matter what you do. You can prolong it; you can try. You can deny it all you want. But one day, you will die. And so time becomes precious. Time becomes important. And Happily Ever After becomes Happily Until The End.</p>
<p>You learn that death is the only problem that every single person and thing in this world faces. Everyone will have a different way of coping with it. Some people will tell you about Heaven and Hell. Some people will tell you about ghosts. Some people will tell you about reincarnation. Some people will tell you about Elysium, Asphodel, and Tartarus. Some people will tell you about zombies. Some people will tell you about Avalon. Some people will tell you about nothing. Everyone will have their own story. You will follow someone else’s until you make up your own.</p>
<p>People will tell you, mostly, that what happens to you after death is decided by a deity, whether it be God or Allah or Buddha. You will ask why he doesn’t decide your life, and they will either tell you that he does or that life is your chance to prove yourself to him. You will find out how many people there are in the world and wonder how any one person could possibly decide the fates of that many people. You will think about it. You will talk about it. Eventually, you will decide whether you believe in this deity or not. That is entirely up to you, and no one else will get to decide it for you.</p>
<p>From here on out, you will learn that life is something most people take for granted. You will learn that some people have died and been torn back to life. You will learn that some people choose to die because they don’t want to live, and that will be the scariest lesson of all.</p>
<p>You will move forward. You will be you. You will find your own meaning in life among the masses of people searching for theirs, and you will do your best to follow it, for better or for worse. Never again will you believe in the good boy and the good girl in love with the bad person dead at their feet.</p>
<p>The truth is, nobody knows what happens when we die. Everyone has their own answer for you. Everyone has their own coping mechanism. Everyone is probably wrong.</p>
<p>Death is the only mystery that can never be solved. <em>That </em>is why we are terrified of it. <em>That </em>is why we sing about it, talk about it, write about it. Because it is the only thing that we will never <em>truly</em> know, and the only thing that we will ever truly need to.</p>
<p>So once you get there - once you’ve stopped living, what happens? Do you breathe? Do you feel? Do you want to?</p>
<p>Louis doesn’t have the answers to any of these questions. No one you meet ever will, not really. And he knows that to try and figure it out now would be foolish.</p>
<p>He’s been breathing, he thinks, because he’s used to doing so. He doesn’t need to anymore. He sits in his room and holds his breath for ten minutes, counting the seconds in his head. His lungs don’t scream; they don’t ache. They stay still and they stay numb. Louis hates it, so he breathes out.</p>
<p>The stars are out now. Since they found out, none of them have spoken. None of them have touched. Your death is just one of those things you have to figure out on your own.</p>
<p>It makes sense now, why there are no clocks. One does not need to tell time when time is infinite.</p>
<p>Louis doesn’t have any good explanation for why these four boys are the ones he’s stuck with for eternity. If this even is eternity. Maybe there’s another death after the one he’s already been through. Then again, he’s seen the way Zayn turned himself into a skeleton: he has the feeling that death here is impossible.</p>
<p>He wonders if that’s a blessing or a curse.</p>
<p>Because why the fuck would anyone want to exist forever? Even if the people you love never die? If you have infinite time then time is meaningless, and therefore everything else is too.</p>
<p>No one wants to spend forever with someone. That’s the truth. If you have forever with someone, you do not cherish every moment. Which is why, Louis supposes, the five of them have been taking each other for granted for so long.</p>
<p>He looks down at his hands, now clean of blood. His wet hair matts against his forehead. His heart beats in his chest, and Louis is dead.</p>
<p>He wonders where the others are. He hasn’t seen them for what feels like hours.</p>
<p>Scattered in front of him are photographs. They are filled with himself, his four boys, and countless other people he doesn’t know anymore but apparently once did. The air is cold and his hands are steady and everything is quiet.</p>
<p>His room doesn’t feel like his anymore. He’s been sitting in it for so long that the beloved things he’s strewn about it now seen like someone else’s. He thinks this must be how ghosts feel, then remembers he is one.</p>
<p>It makes him laugh.</p>
<p>The window bangs open. Every record player in the house, all of which have been playing Sasha Sloan’s <em> Dancing With Your Ghost </em> for the past seven or so hours, stop.</p>
<p>Louis barely notices.</p>
<p>The photographs are tickled by the wind until they’re shivering, then drifting. They roll and they flip and they drift until they’re flying, and Louis doesn’t try to catch them. He doesn’t know if death has made him an angel or a demon or something else entirely, but he knows that his wings have been stolen from him and caged up somewhere he will never be able to find nor reach, and he wouldn’t wish that on anyone or anything.</p>
<p>One photograph, though, only flaps in the wind a few times before giving up, weakly fluttering to the floor again. Louis doesn’t know why this photograph is important. It’s just another picture of the five of them.</p>
<p>They’re laughing. They’ve got their arms around each other. They look young. They look happy.</p>
<p>What a foreign, funny thing.</p>
<p>He picks it up with gentle hands. He feels grooves as his fingers brush over the back, and a smile flits across his face as he tries to guess at the date, then realizes he wouldn’t remember anyway. His memory is just another thing death has stolen from him.</p>
<p>Though, he supposes, what he can’t remember he can’t miss.</p>
<p>He flips the photograph over. There, on the back, are words that Louis <em> knows, </em> despite his faulty mind these days, that he has seen before.</p>
<p>Harry’s writing comes first. Messy and uneven, so you can tell he was laughing when he wrote it. The thought makes Louis’s mouth stretch into a smile. The words make it drop open.</p>
<p>
  <em> You cannot possess me for I belong to myself. But while we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give. </em>
</p>
<p>Niall’s handwriting follows. It’s darker than Harry’s, because he presses the pencil down harder when he writes. Louis can see him now, the way his tongue sticks out of his mouth in concentration. He imagines he was grinning.</p>
<p>
  <em> You cannot command me, for I am a free person. But I shall serve you in those ways you require, and the honeycomb will taste sweeter coming from my hand. </em>
</p>
<p>Then Zayn. He writes lightly and with care; Louis wonders when this photograph was taken. Wonders if this was before or after he decided to leave. Wonders if this was before or after he told them. Wonders if it matters.</p>
<p>
  <em> I pledge to you that yours will be the name I cry aloud in the night. And the eyes into which I smile in the morning. I pledge to you the first bite from my meat, and the first drink from my cup. </em>
</p>
<p>Liam’s letters shake. They are small and scribbled, as if he could not have written the words fast enough. Louis can’t think of why; words like these, words you live and breathe and die with, words like these never leave you. Not even when you want them to.</p>
<p>
  <em> I pledge to you my living and dying, equally in your care, and tell no strangers our grievances. This is my wedding vow to you. This is a marriage of equals. </em>
</p>
<p>And lastly, Louis’ own handwriting stares back at him. Unlike every song he’s ever written, every word he’s ever spoken, these are not an admittance. These are not a secret. These are not shameful or angry or sad; they are not sarcastic or false or untrustworthy.</p>
<p>These words, simply, are happy.</p>
<p>
  <em> And beyond this, I will cherish and honor you through this life, and into the next. </em>
</p>
<p>Louis, simply, is happy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>when i hold you</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>in my arms</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Louis stands on steady legs. They are strong, ready to carry him. His hands are still. His heart is beating. His eyes are open.</p>
<p>There is no doubt. There is no question. There is no regret.</p>
<p>He was always coming back here, in the end.</p>
<p>He walks down the stairs with purpose. Each step is a decision. He knows where he is going, knows where he needs to be. He has no expectations clouding his head, no opinions, no voices. There is only him, and only clarity.</p>
<p>Louis reaches the door in his own time. He stands in front of it and waits. He does not worry. He does not panic. He is not afraid.</p>
<p>He waits for hours. Or seconds. Or minutes. Or days. Or years. He waits for as long as he needs to. He came back to them. They will come back to him.</p>
<p>The sun reaches its highest point, and Liam comes and stands next to him. Louis doesn’t know what he’s waiting for. He doesn’t need to. They each have their own reasons. They each have their own stories. They are their own people.</p>
<p>The sky falls from blue to grey. Zayn appears at Liam’s side. He looks at them both and smiles. He says nothing.</p>
<p>The grey fades into pink and orange. Louis counts his heartbeats in time with Niall’s footsteps as they come to a stop. Niall stands beside Zayn and looks straight ahead at the doorway. Louis keeps waiting for his purpose to falter, for his resolve to slip, but like the certainty of their deaths, there is certainty of other things.</p>
<p>The pink and orange blink away into purple. The purple sinks into dark blue. The blue surrenders to black, and Harry comes to stand beside Niall without a word.</p>
<p>All at once, they step towards the door. There was a time when one of them would ask if they should really be doing this; if there were any rules they were breaking, if this was safe. There was a time when one of them would step back and remind the others, <em> The world is ending. </em></p>
<p>They know better now. The world is ending, yes, but it’s their world. They brought it to life. They grew it into what it is. And yes, they tore it down. But that happens to everything.</p>
<p>They will let it fall. They will let it have its peace, its rest. And when it is ready, they will pull it from its grave and build it up again. Stronger this time. Wiser. Kinder.</p>
<p>Harry is the first to go.</p>
<p>Niall is the second.</p>
<p>Zayn is the third.</p>
<p>Liam is the fourth.</p>
<p>And finally, taking care to close the door behind him, Louis is the fifth to step out into the world.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>there ain’t nothin’</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>common ‘bout us</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Here’s the thing about life: there is no single anything.</p>
<p>There are billions upon billions of stories, each one different in the details and similar in the big picture. Grew up, fell in love. That story, passed down through every generation there’s ever been, is the basis for every story there’s ever been. A person was born. They lived. They loved. They laughed. They cried. They died. That is the story, no matter how many people live it or try to change it.</p>
<p>The only thing in this world that is entirely unique… is you.</p>
<p>Louis learned this the hard way. They all learned this the hard way. They may have been shaped into simplistic stereotypes for the world that loved them just a bit too much, but they have always been deeper than that. They have always been who they are. They have always been their own people.</p>
<p>See, the thing is, we write our own stories. No one else gets to write them for us. Everyone gets a pen. Everyone gets a book. And it doesn’t matter how many people read your story, whether it’s one hundred or one million, because in the end, every life is of equal importance. Every life matters.</p>
<p>Louis, Liam, Zayn, Niall, Harry - they are each their own story. And when they met, when they became friends, when they fell in love, that connected their stories. But even if we want to believe in love as the beginning, middle, and end of everything, it isn’t. They are still writing their own stories. They’re just writing them together now.</p>
<p>And when they grow tired of that, they’ll write alone again. But that doesn’t erase all the writing they did together, all the other stories they changed together. Those stories live on. In them, in us, in you.</p>
<p>This is their grave.</p>
<p>This is where Harry Styles ends. This is where Niall Horan ends. This is where Zayn Malik ends. This is where Liam Payne ends. This is where Louis Tomlinson ends.</p>
<p>This where One Direction ends.</p>
<p>In the sky, the stars are shining. The five of them, they are a five point star. They will supernova and they will relapse and they will disappear. That’s what stars do.</p>
<p>But they will find each other again. And they will form a new star. Because that’s what love is.</p>
<p>Louis looks up at the endless black sky, and all the stars shining against it. He wonders how many people are up there. He wonders how many will join them.</p>
<p>On one side of him, Zayn takes his hand. On his other, Harry threads their fingers together. Liam curls his own fingers around Zayn’s, and Niall wraps his hand around Harry’s.</p>
<p>Louis smiles.</p>
<p>This is where who they were ends, and who they are begins.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> just when i thought </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i knew myself </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> part of life leaps up </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> from the inside </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> letting me know </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> it’s there. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> it would be easy </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> to go on living </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> all the same. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> but i don’t. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i know better </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> than to think i could. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> instead, i change </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> in a good way. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> living some other </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> part of myself. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i see my friends </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> do this. and i </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> see strangers, too. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> each of us </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> is startled </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> and each of us </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> proceeds in kind. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i’m grateful to notice. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> it makes me feel </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> like at any moment </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> i might open a door </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> and miraculously </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> you’ll all be there. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> - Billy Merrell (Vanilla) </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>sorry sorry sorry<br/>yeah no i'm not<br/>can you believe that when i planned this out it was actually mostly fluff?</p>
<p>thank you so much for reading this, it means the world to me<br/>this story is my baby, and i'm so so proud of it<br/>i hope it means as much to you as it does to me</p>
<p>some pieces of inspiration for this world are:<br/>soulmates sharing a heaven in Supernatural<br/>the whole “when people die the stars are holes in the veil that their souls peek through” thing</p>
<p>these are the words on the back of the photograph: https://thedaughterofkings.tumblr.com/post/158439780166/traditional-celtic-marriage-vows-better-than</p>
<p>"Afterlife" by Hailee Steinfeld is really the theme song of this story. Please go listen to it, it's amazing. That song makes me feel like I am immortal, like even if I die I'll still be alive. It's fucking Wonderlandian.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>please don't kill me &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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